Hybrid cantaloupe plant named SUN PAC

ABSTRACT

A novel hybrid cantaloupe plant designated SUN PAC is disclosed. The disclosure relates to the seeds of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC, to the plants and plant parts of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC, and to methods for producing a cantaloupe plant by crossing the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC with itself or another cantaloupe plant.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to the field of agriculture, to new anddistinctive hybrid cantaloupe plants, such as a hybrid plant designatedSUN PAC and to methods of making and using such hybrids.

BACKGROUND

The following description includes information that may be useful inunderstanding the present disclosure. It is not an admission that any ofthe information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presentdisclosure, or that any publication specifically or implicitlyreferenced is prior art.

Cantaloupe is an important and valuable vegetable crop. Thus, acontinuing goal of plant breeders is to develop stable, high yieldingcantaloupe hybrids that are agronomically sound or unique. The reasonsfor this goal are to maximize the amount of fruit produced on the landused (yield) as well as to improve the fruit appearance, the fruit shapeand size, eating and processing qualities and/or the plant agronomic andhorticultural qualities. To accomplish this goal, the cantaloupe breedermust select and develop cantaloupe plants that have the traits thatresult in superior parental lines that combine to produce superiorhybrids.

SUMMARY

The following embodiments and aspects thereof are described inconjunction with systems, tools and methods which are meant to beexemplary, not limiting in scope.

According to the disclosure, in some embodiments there is provided anovel hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC, also interchangeablyreferred to as ‘hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC’, ‘cantaloupe hybrid SUN PAC’or ‘SUN PAC’.

This disclosure thus relates to the seeds of hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC, to the plants or parts of hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC, to plants or parts thereof comprising all of thephysiological and morphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC or parts thereof, and/or having all of thephysiological and morphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC, and/or having one or more of or all of thecharacteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC listed in Table1 including but not limited to as determined at the 5% significancelevel when grown in the same environmental conditions, and/or having oneor more of the physiological and morphological characteristics of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC listed in Table 1 including but notlimited to as determined at the 5% significance level when grown in thesame environmental conditions and/or having all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAClisted in Table 1 including but not limited to as determined at the 5%significance level when grown in the same environmental conditionsand/or having one or more of the physiological and morphologicalcharacteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC listed in Table1 when grown in the same environmental conditions and/or having all ofthe physiological and morphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC listed in Table 1 when grown in the sameenvironmental conditions. The disclosure also relates to variants,mutants and trivial modifications of the seed or plant of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC.

Plant parts of the hybrid cantaloupe plant designated SUN PAC of thepresent disclosure are also provided, such as, but not limited to, ascion, a rootstock, a fruit, a leaf, a flower, a peduncle, a stalk, aroot, a stamen, an anther, a pistil, a pollen or an ovule obtained fromthe hybrid plant. The present disclosure provides fruit of the hybridcantaloupe plant designated SUN PAC of the present disclosure. Suchfruit and parts thereof could be used as fresh products for consumptionor in processes resulting in processed products such as food productscomprising one or more harvested parts of the hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC, such as prepared fruit or parts thereof, cannedfruit or parts thereof, freeze-dried or frozen fruits or parts thereof,diced fruits, juices, prepared fruit cuts, canned cantaloupe, pastes,sauces, purees and the like. All such products are part of the presentdisclosure and the like. The harvested parts or food products can be orcan comprise hybrid cantaloupe fruit from hybrid cantaloupe designatedSUN PAC. The food products might have undergone one or more processingsteps such as, but not limited to cutting, washing, mixing, frizzing,canning, etc. All such products are part of the present disclosure. Thepresent disclosure also provides plant parts or cells of the hybridcantaloupe plant designated SUN PAC, wherein a plant regenerated fromsaid plants parts or cells has one or more of, or all the phenotypic andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC,such as one or more of or all the characteristics of hybrid cantaloupeplant designated SUN PAC, listed in Table 1 including but not limited toas determined at the 5% significance level when grown in the sameenvironmental conditions. All such parts and cells are part of thepresent disclosure.

The plants and seeds of the present disclosure include those that may beof an essentially derived variety as defined in section 41(3) of thePlant Variety Protection Act of The United States of America, e.g., avariety that is predominantly derived from hybrid cantaloupe designatedSUN PAC or from a variety that i) is predominantly derived from hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC, while retaining the expression of theessential characteristics that result from the genotype or combinationof genotypes of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC; ii) is clearlydistinguishable from hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC; and iii)except for differences that result from the act of derivation, conformsto the initial variety in the expression of the essentialcharacteristics that result from the genotype or combination ofgenotypes of the hybrid cantaloupe plant designated SUN PAC.

In another aspect, the present disclosure provides regenerable cells. Insome embodiments, the regenerable cells are for use in tissue culture ofhybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC. In some embodiments, the tissueculture is capable of regenerating plants comprising all of thephysiological and morphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC, and/or having all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC,and/or having one or more of the physiological and morphologicalcharacteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC, and/or havingthe characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC. In someembodiments, the regenerated plants have the characteristics of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC listed in Table 1 including but notlimited to as determined at the 5% significance level when grown in thesame environmental conditions and/or have all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAClisted in Table 1 including but not limited to as determined at the 5%significance level when grown in the same environmental conditionsand/or have one or more of the physiological and morphologicalcharacteristics hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC listed in Table 1including but not limited to as determined at the 5% significance levelwhen grown in the same environmental conditions and/or have all of thephysiological and morphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC listed in Table 1 when grown in the sameenvironmental conditions.

In some embodiments, the plant parts and cells used to produce suchtissue cultures will be embryos, meristematic cells, seeds, callus,pollens, leaves, anthers, pistils, stamens, roots, root tips, stems,petioles, fruits, cotyledons, hypocotyls, ovaries, seed coats, fruits,stalks, endosperms, flowers, axillary buds or the like. Protoplastsproduced from such tissue culture are also included in the presentdisclosure. The cantaloupe leaves, shoots, roots and whole plantsregenerated from the tissue culture, as well as the fruits produced bysaid regenerated plants are also part of the disclosure. In someembodiments, the whole plants regenerated from the tissue culture haveone, more than one, or all of the physiological and morphologicalcharacteristics of cantaloupe hybrid designated SUN PAC listed in Table1, including but not limited to as determined at the 5% significancelevel when grown in the same environmental conditions.

The disclosure also provides for methods for vegetatively propagating aplant of the present disclosure. In the present application,vegetatively propagating can be interchangeably used with vegetativereproduction. In some embodiments, the methods comprise collecting partsof a hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC and regenerating a plant fromsaid parts. In some embodiments, one of the parts can be for example astem. In some embodiments, the methods can be for example a stem cuttingthat is rooted into an appropriate medium according to techniques knownby the one skilled in the art. Plants and parts thereof, including butnot limited to fruits thereof, produced by such methods are alsoincluded in the present disclosure. In another aspect, the plants andparts thereof such as stems and fruits produced by such methods compriseall of the physiological and morphological characteristics of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC, and/or have all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PACand/or have the physiological and morphological characteristics ofhybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC and/or have one or more of thecharacteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC. In someembodiments, plants, parts or fruits thereof produced by such methodsconsist of one, more than one, or all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of cantaloupe hybrid designated SUN PAClisted in Table 1, including but not limited to as determined at the 5%significance level when grown in the same environmental conditions.

Further included in the disclosure are methods for producing fruitsand/or seeds from the hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC. In someembodiments, the methods comprise growing a hybrid cantaloupe designatedSUN PAC to produce cantaloupe fruits and/or seeds. In some embodiments,the methods further comprise harvesting the hybrid cantaloupe fruitsand/or seeds. Such fruits and/or seeds are parts of the presentdisclosure. In some embodiments, such fruits and/or seeds have all ofthe physiological and morphological characteristics of the fruits and/orseeds of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC (e.g. those listed inTable 1) when grown in the same environmental conditions and/or have oneor more of the physiological and morphological characteristics of thefruits and/or seeds of the hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC (e.g.those listed in Table 1) when grown in the same environmental conditionsand/or have the characteristics of the fruits and/or seeds of the hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC (e.g. those listed in Table 1) when grownin the same environmental conditions.

Also included in this disclosure are methods for producing a cantaloupeplant. In some embodiments, the cantaloupe plant is produced by crossingthe hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC with itself or other cantaloupeplant. In some embodiments, the other plant can be a hybrid cantaloupeother than the hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC. In otherembodiments, the other plant can be a cantaloupe inbred line. Whencrossed with an inbred line, in some embodiments, a “three-way cross” isproduced. When crossed with itself (i.e. when a cantaloupe SUN PAC iscrossed with another hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC plant or whenself-pollinated), or with another, different hybrid cantaloupe, in someembodiments, a “four-way” cross is produced. Such three and four-wayhybrid seeds and plants produced by growing said three and four-wayhybrid seeds are included in the present disclosure. Methods forproducing a three and four-way hybrid cantaloupe seeds comprising (a)crossing hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC cantaloupe plant with adifferent cantaloupe inbred line or hybrid and (b) harvesting theresultant hybrid cantaloupe seed are also part of the disclosure. Thehybrid cantaloupe seeds produced by the method comprising crossinghybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC cantaloupe plant with a differentcantaloupe plant such as a cantaloupe inbred line or hybrid, andharvesting the resultant hybrid cantaloupe seed are included in thedisclosure, as are included the hybrid cantaloupe plant or parts thereofand seeds produced by said grown hybrid cantaloupe plants.

Further included in the disclosure are methods for producing cantaloupeseeds and plants made thereof. In some embodiments, the methods compriseself-pollinating the hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC and harvestingthe resultant hybrid seeds. Cantaloupe seeds produced by such method arealso part of the disclosure.

In another embodiment, this disclosure relates to methods for producinga hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC from a collection of seeds.

In some embodiments, the collection contains both seeds of inbred parentline(s) of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC seeds and hybrid seedsof SUN PAC. Such a collection of seeds might be a commercial bag ofseeds. In some embodiments, said methods comprise planting thecollection of seeds. When planted, the collection of seeds will produceinbred parent lines of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC and hybrid plants fromthe hybrid seeds of SUN PAC. In some embodiments, said inbred parentlines of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC plants are identified ashaving a decreased vigor compared to the other plants (i.e. hybridplants) grown from the collection of seeds. In some embodiments, saiddecreased vigor is due to the inbreeding depression effect and can beidentified for example by a less vigorous appearance for vegetativeand/or reproductive characteristics including a shorter plant height,small fruit size, fruit shape, fruit color or other characteristics. Insome embodiments, seeds of the inbred parent lines of the hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC are collected and, if new inbred parent plantsthereof are grown and crossed in a controlled manner with each other,the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC will be recreated.

This disclosure also relates to methods for producing other cantaloupeplants derived from hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC and to the cantaloupeplants derived by the use of methods described herein.

In some embodiments, such methods for producing a cantaloupe plantderived from hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC comprise (a) self-pollinating thehybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC plant at least once to produce a progeny plantderived from the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In some embodiments, themethods further comprise (b) crossing the progeny plant derived from thehybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC with itself or a second cantaloupe plant toproduce a seed of a progeny plant of a subsequent generation. In someembodiments, the methods further comprise (c) growing the progeny plantof the subsequent generation. In some embodiments, the methods furthercomprise (d) crossing the progeny plant of the subsequent generationwith itself or a second cantaloupe plant to produce a cantaloupe plantfurther derived from the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In furtherembodiments, steps (b), step (c) and/or step (d) are repeated for atleast 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or more generations to produce acantaloupe plant derived from the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In someembodiments, within each crossing cycle, the second plant is the sameplant as the second plant in the last crossing cycle. In someembodiments, within each crossing cycle, the second plant is differentfrom the second plant in the last crossing cycle.

Another method for producing a cantaloupe plant derived from hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC, comprises (a) crossing the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PACplant with a second cantaloupe plant to produce a progeny plant derivedfrom the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In some embodiments, the methodfurther comprises (b) crossing the progeny plant derived from the hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC with itself or a second cantaloupe plant to produce aseed of a progeny plant of a subsequent generation. In some embodiments,the method further comprises (c) growing the progeny plant of thesubsequent generation. In some embodiments, the method further comprises(d) crossing the progeny plant of the subsequent generation with itselfor a second cantaloupe plant to produce a cantaloupe plant derived fromthe hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In a further embodiment, steps (b), (c)and/or (d) are repeated for at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or moregenerations to produce a cantaloupe plant derived from the hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC. In some embodiments, within each crossing cycle, thesecond plant is the same plant as the second plant in the last crossingcycle. In some embodiments, within each crossing cycle, the second plantis different from the second plant in the last crossing cycle.

In one aspect, the present disclosure provides methods of introducing asingle locus conversion conferring one or more desired trait(s) into thehybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, and plants, fruits and/or seeds obtained fromsuch methods. In another aspect, the present disclosure provides methodsof modifying a single locus and conferring one or more desired trait(s)into the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, and plants, fruits and/or seedsobtained from such methods. The desired trait(s) may be, but notexclusively, conferred by a single locus that contains a single and/ormultiple gene(s). In some embodiments, the gene is a dominant allele. Insome embodiments, the gene is a partially dominant allele. In someembodiments, the gene is a recessive allele. In some embodiments, thegene or genes will confer or modify such traits, including but notlimited to male sterility, herbicide resistance, insect resistance,resistance for bacterial, fungal, mycoplasma or viral disease, enhancedplant quality such as improved drought or salt tolerance, water-stresstolerance, improved standability, enhanced plant vigor, improved shelflife, delayed senescence or controlled ripening, enhanced nutritionalquality such as increased sugar content or increased sweetness,increased texture, flavor and aroma, improved fruit length and/or size,protection for color, fruit shape, uniformity, length or diameter,refinement or depth, lodging resistance, yield and recovery, improvefresh cut application, specific aromatic compounds, specific volatiles,flesh texture and specific nutritional components. For the presentdisclosure and the skilled artisan, disease is understood to include,but not limited to fungal diseases, viral diseases, bacterial diseases,mycoplasma diseases, or other plant pathogenic diseases and a diseaseresistant plant will encompass a plant resistant to fungal, viral,bacterial, mycoplasma, and other plant pathogens. In one aspect, thegene or genes may be naturally occurring cantaloupe gene(s) and/orspontaneous or induced mutations(s). In another aspect, genes aremutated, modified, genetically engineered through the use of NewBreeding Techniques described herein. In some embodiments, the methodfor introducing the desired trait(s) is a backcrossing process by makinguse of a series of backcrosses to at least one of the parent lines ofhybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC (a.k.a. hybrid cantaloupe SUN PACor cantaloupe hybrid SUN PAC) during which the desired trait(s) ismaintained by selection. At least one of the parent lines of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC possesses the desired trait(s) by thebackcrossing process, and the desired trait(s) is inherited by thehybrid cantaloupe progeny plants by conventional breeding techniquesknown to breeders of ordinary skill in the art. The single geneconverted plants or single locus converted plants that can be obtainedby the methods are included in the present disclosure.

When dealing with a gene that has been modified, for example through NewBreeding Techniques, the trait (genetic modification) could be directlymodified into the newly developed hybrid cantaloupe plant and/or atleast one of the parent lines of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC.Alternatively, if the trait is not modified into each newly developedhybrid cantaloupe plant and/or at least one of the parent lines ofhybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, another typical method used by breeders ofordinary skill in the art to incorporate the modified gene is to take aline already carrying the modified gene and to use such line as a donorline to transfer the modified gene into the newly developed hybridcantaloupe plant and/or at least one of the parent lines of the newlydeveloped hybrid. The same would apply for a naturally occurring traitor one arising from spontaneous or induced mutations.

In some embodiments, the backcross breeding process of hybrid cantaloupeSUN PAC comprises (a) crossing one of the parental inbred line plants ofhybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC with plants of another line that comprise thedesired trait(s) to produce F₁ progeny plants. In some embodiments, theprocess further comprises (b) selecting the F₁ progeny plants that havethe desired trait(s). In some embodiments, the process further comprises(c) crossing the selected F₁ progeny plants with the parental inbredcantaloupe lines of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC plants to producebackcross progeny plants. In some embodiments, the process furthercomprises (d) selecting for backcross progeny plants that have thedesired trait(s) and essentially all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of the cantaloupe parental inbred line ofhybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC to produce selected backcross progeny plants.In some embodiments, the process further comprises (e) repeating steps(c) and (d) one, two, three, four, five six, seven, eight, nine or moretimes in succession to produce selected, second, third, fourth, fifth,sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth or higher backcross progeny plants thathave the desired trait(s) and essentially all of the characteristics ofthe parental inbred cantaloupe line of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, and/orhave the desired trait(s) and essentially all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of the parental cantaloupe inbred line ofhybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, and/or have the desired trait(s) andotherwise essentially all of the physiological and morphologicalcharacteristics of the parental inbred cantaloupe line of cantaloupehybrid SUN PAC, including but not limited to when grown in the sameenvironmental conditions or including but not limited to at a 5%significance level when grown in the same environmental conditions. Thecantaloupe plants or seed produced by the methods are also part of thedisclosure, as are the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC plants that comprisedthe desired trait. Backcrossing breeding methods, well known to oneskilled in the art of plant breeding will be further developed insubsequent parts of the specification.

An embodiment of this disclosure is a method of making a backcrossconversion of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In some embodiments, the methodcomprises crossing one of the parental cantaloupe inbred line plants ofhybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC with a donor plant comprising a mutantgene(s), a naturally occurring gene(s) or a gene(s) and/or sequence(s)modified through New Breeding Techniques conferring one or more desiredtraits to produce F₁ progeny plants. In some embodiments, the methodfurther comprises selecting an F₁ progeny plant comprising the naturallyoccurring gene(s), mutant gene(s) or gene(s) and/or sequences(s)modified through New Breeding Techniques conferring the one or moredesired traits. In some embodiments, the method further comprisesbackcrossing the selected progeny plant to the parental cantaloupeinbred line plants of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. This method may furthercomprise the step of obtaining a molecular marker profile of theparental cantaloupe inbred line plants of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC andusing the molecular marker profile to select for the progeny plant withthe desired trait and the molecular marker profile of the parentalcantaloupe inbred line plants of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In someembodiments, this method further comprises crossing the backcrossprogeny plant of the parental cantaloupe inbred line plant of hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC containing the naturally occurring gene(s), themutant gene(s) or the modified gene(s) and or sequences modified throughNew Breeding Techniques conferring the one or more desired traits withthe second parental inbred cantaloupe line plants of hybrid cantaloupeSUN PAC in order to produce the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC comprising thenaturally occurring gene(s), the mutant gene(s) or modified gene(s)and/or sequences modified through New Breeding Techniques conferring theone or more desired traits. The plants or parts thereof produced by suchmethods are also part of the present disclosure.

In some embodiments of the disclosure, the number of loci that may betransferred and/or backcrossed into the parental cantaloupe inbred lineof hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC is at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or more.

A single locus may contain several genes. A single locus conversion alsoallows for making one or more site specific changes to the plant genome,such as, without limitation, one or more nucleotide changes, deletions,insertions, substitutions, etc. In some embodiments, the single locusconversion is performed by genome editing, a.k.a. genome editing withengineered nucleases (GEEN). In some embodiments, the genome editingcomprises using one or more engineered nucleases. In some embodiments,the engineered nucleases include, but are not limited to Zinc fingernucleases (ZFNs), Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases(TALENs), the CRISPR/Cas system, engineered meganuclease, re-engineeredhoming endonucleases and endonucleases for DNA guided genome editing(Gao et al., Nature Biotechnology (2016), doi: 10.1038/nbt.3547). Insome embodiments, the single locus conversion changes one or severalnucleotides of the plant genome. Such genome editing techniques are someof the techniques now known by the person skilled in the art and hereinare collectively referred to as “New Breeding Techniques”. In someembodiments, one or more above-mentioned genome editing methods aredirectly applied on a plant of the present disclosure, rather than onthe parental cantaloupe inbred lines of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC.Accordingly, a cell containing an edited genome, or a plant partcontaining such cell can be isolated and used to regenerate a novelplant which has a new trait conferred by said genome editing, andessentially all of the physiological and morphological characteristicsof hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC.

The disclosure further provides methods for developing cantaloupe plantsin a cantaloupe plant breeding program using plant breeding techniquesincluding but not limited to, recurrent selection, backcrossing,pedigree breeding, genomic selection, molecular marker (IsozymeElectrophoresis, Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (RFLPs),Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs), Arbitrarily PrimedPolymerase Chain Reactions (AP-PCRs), DNA Amplification Fingerprintings(DAFs), Sequence Characterized Amplified Regions (SCARs), AmplifiedFragment Length Polymorphisms (AFLPs), and Simple Sequence Repeats(SSRs) which are also referred to as Microsatellites, Single NucleotidePolymorphisms (SNPs), enhanced selection, genetic markers, enhancedselection and transformation. Seeds, cantaloupe plants, and partsthereof produced by such breeding methods are also part of thedisclosure.

The disclosure also relates to variants, mutants and trivialmodifications of the seed or plant of the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC orinbred parental lines thereof. Variants, mutants and trivialmodifications of the seed or plant of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC orinbred parental lines thereof can be generated by methods available toone skilled in the art, including but not limited to, mutagenesis (e.g.,chemical mutagenesis, radiation mutagenesis, transposon mutagenesis,insertional mutagenesis, signature tagged mutagenesis, site-directedmutagenesis, and natural mutagenesis), knock-outs/knock-ins, antisenseoligonucleotides, RNA interference and other techniques such as the NewBreeding Techniques. For more information of mutagenesis in plants, suchas agents or protocols, see Acquaah et al. (Principles of plant geneticsand breeding, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007, ISBN 1405136464, 9781405136464,which is herein incorporated by reference in its entity).

The disclosure also relates to a mutagenized population of the hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC and methods of using such populations. In someembodiments, the mutagenized population can be used in screening for newcantaloupe plants which comprise essentially one or more of or all themorphological and physiological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe SUNPAC. In some embodiments, the new cantaloupe plants obtained from thescreening process comprise essentially all of the morphological andphysiological characteristics of the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, and oneor more additional or different morphological and physiologicalcharacteristics that the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC does not have.

This disclosure is also directed to methods for producing a cantaloupeplant by crossing a first parent cantaloupe plant with a second parentcantaloupe plant, wherein either the first or second parent cantaloupeplant is a hybrid cantaloupe plant of SUN PAC. Further, both first andsecond parent cantaloupe plants can come from the hybrid cantaloupeplant SUN PAC. Further, the hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC can beself-pollinated i.e. the pollen of a hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC canpollinate the ovule of the same hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC. Whencrossed with another cantaloupe plant, a hybrid seed is produced. Suchmethods of hybridization and self-pollination are well known to thoseskilled in the art of breeding.

An inbred cantaloupe line such as one of the parental lines of hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC has been produced through several cycles ofself-pollination and is therefore to be considered as a homozygous line.An inbred line can also be produced though the dihaploid system whichinvolves doubling the chromosomes from a haploid plant or embryo thusresulting in an inbred line that is genetically stable (homozygous) andcan be reproduced without altering the inbred line. Haploid plants couldbe obtained from haploid embryos that might be produced frommicrospores, pollen, anther cultures or ovary cultures or spontaneoushaploidy. The haploid embryos may then be doubled by chemical treatmentssuch as by colchicine or be doubled autonomously. The haploid embryosmay also be grown into haploid plants and treated to induce thechromosome doubling. In either case, fertile homozygous plants may beobtained. A hybrid variety is classically created through thefertilization of an ovule from an inbred parental line by the pollen ofanother, different inbred parental line. Due to the homozygous state ofthe inbred line, the produced gametes carry a copy of each parentalchromosome. As both the ovule and the pollen bring a copy of thearrangement and organization of the genes present in the parental lines,the genome of each parental line is present in the resulting F₁ hybrid,theoretically in the arrangement and organization created by the plantbreeder in the original parental line.

As long as the homozygosity of the parental lines is maintained, theresulting hybrid cross shall be stable. The F₁ hybrid is then acombination of phenotypic characteristics issued from two arrangementand organization of genes, both created by a person skilled in the artthrough the breeding process.

Still further, this disclosure is also directed to methods for producinga cantaloupe plant derived from hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC by crossinghybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC with a second cantaloupe plant. In someembodiments, the methods further comprise obtaining a progeny seed fromthe cross. In some embodiments, the methods further comprise growing theprogeny seed, and possibly repeating the crossing and growing steps withthe hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC derived plant from 0 to 7 or moretimes. Thus, any such methods using the hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PACare part of this disclosure: selfing, backcrosses, hybrid production,crosses to populations, and the like. All plants produced using hybridcantaloupe plant SUN PAC as a parent are within the scope of thisdisclosure, including plants derived from hybrid cantaloupe plant SUNPAC. In some embodiments, such plants have one, more than one or all ofthe physiological and morphological characteristics of the hybridcantaloupe plant SUN PAC listed in Table 1 including but not limited toas determined at the 5% significance level when grown in the sameenvironmental conditions. In some embodiments, such plants might exhibitadditional and desired characteristics or traits such as high seedyield, high seed germination, seedling vigor, early maturity, high fruityield, ease of fruit setting, disease tolerance or resistance, lodgingresistance, and adaptability for soil and climate conditions.Consumer-driven traits, such as a preference for a given fruit size,fruit shape, fruit color, fruit texture, fruit taste, fruit firmness,fruit sugar content are other traits that may be incorporated into newcantaloupe plants developed by this disclosure.

A cantaloupe plant can also be propagated vegetatively. A part of theplant, for example a shoot tissue, is collected, and a new plant isobtained from the part. Such part typically comprises an apical meristemof the plant. The collected part is transferred to a medium allowingdevelopment of a plantlet, including for example rooting or developmentof shoots, or is grafted onto a cantaloupe plant or a rootstock preparedto support growth of shoot tissue. This is achieved using methods wellknown in the art. Accordingly, in one embodiment, a method ofvegetatively propagating a plant of the present disclosure comprisescollecting a part of a plant according to the present disclosure, e.g. ashoot tissue, and obtaining a plantlet from said part. In oneembodiment, a method of vegetatively propagating a plant of the presentdisclosure comprises: (a) collecting tissue of a plant of the presentdisclosure; (b) rooting said proliferated shoots to obtain rootedplantlets. In one embodiment, a method of vegetatively propagating aplant of the present disclosure comprises: (a) collecting tissue of aplant of the present disclosure; (b) cultivating said tissue to obtainproliferated shoots; (c) rooting said proliferated shoots to obtainrooted plantlets. In one embodiment, such method further comprisesgrowing a plant from said plantlets. In one embodiment, a fruit isharvested from said plant. In one embodiment, such fruits and plantshave all of the physiological and morphological characteristics offruits and plants of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC when grown inthe same environmental conditions. In one embodiment, the fruit isprocessed into products such as canned cantaloupe fruits and/or partsthereof, freeze dried or frozen fruit and/or parts thereof, fresh orprepared fruit and/or parts thereof or pastes, sauces, purees and thelike.

The disclosure is also directed to the use of the hybrid cantaloupeplant SUN PAC in a grafting process. In one embodiment, the hybridcantaloupe plant SUN PAC is used as the scion while in anotherembodiment, the hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC is used as a rootstock.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a seed of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC, wherein a representative sample of seedof said hybrid is deposited under NCIMB No. 43853.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a cantaloupe plant,or a part thereof, produced by growing the deposited SUN PAC seed.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a cantaloupe plantpart, wherein the cantaloupe part is selected from the group consistingof: a leaf, a flower, a fruit, a stalk, a root, a rootstock, a seed, anembryo, a peduncle, a stamen, an anther, a pistil, an ovule, a pollen, acell, a rootstock, and a scion.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a cantaloupe plant,or a part thereof, having all of the characteristics of hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC as listed in Table 1 of this disclosure including butnot limited to as determined at the 5% significance level when grown inthe same environmental conditions.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a cantaloupe plant,or a part thereof, having all of the physiological and morphologicalcharacteristics of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, wherein a representativesample of seed of said hybrid was deposited under NCIMB No. 43853.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a tissue culture ofregenerable cells produced from the plant or part grown from thedeposited SUN PAC seed, wherein cells of the tissue culture are producedfrom a plant part selected from the group consisting of protoplasts,embryos, meristematic cells, callus, pollens, ovules, flowers, seeds,leaves, roots, root tips, anthers, stems, petioles, fruits, axillarybuds, cotyledons and hypocotyls. In some embodiments, the plant partincludes protoplasts produced from a plant grown from the deposited SUNPAC seed.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a compositioncomprising regenerable cells produced from the plant or part thereofgrown from the deposited hybrid SUN PAC seed, or other part or cellthereof. In some embodiments, the composition further comprises a growthmedia. In some embodiments, the growth media is solid or a syntheticcultivation medium. In some embodiments, the composition is a cantaloupeplant regenerated from the tissue culture from a plant grown from thedeposited SUN PAC seed, said plant having all of the characteristics ofhybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, wherein a representative sample of seed ofsaid hybrid is deposited under NCIMB No. 43853.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a cantaloupe fruitproduced from the plant grown from the deposited SUN PAC seed.

In some embodiments, such fruits have all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PACfruits when grown in the same environmental conditions.

In some embodiments, methods of producing said cantaloupe fruit comprise(a) growing the cantaloupe plant from deposited SUN PAC seed to producea cantaloupe fruit, and (b) harvesting said cantaloupe fruit. In someembodiments, the present disclosure also teaches a cantaloupe fruitproduced by the method of producing cantaloupe fruit and/or seed asdescribed above. In some embodiments, such fruits have all of thephysiological and morphological characteristics of fruits of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC (e.g. those listed in Table 1) when grownin the same environmental conditions.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches methods forproducing a cantaloupe seed comprising crossing a first parentcantaloupe plant with a second parent cantaloupe plant and harvestingthe resultant cantaloupe seed, wherein said first parent cantaloupeplant and/or second parent cantaloupe plant is the cantaloupe plantproduced from the deposited SUN PAC seed or a cantaloupe plant havingall of the characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC as listed inTable 1 including but not limited to as determined at the 5%significance level when grown in the same environmental conditions.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches methods forproducing a cantaloupe seed comprising self-pollinating the cantaloupeplant grown from the deposited SUN PAC seed and harvesting the resultantcantaloupe seed.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches the seed produced byany of the above described methods.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches methods ofvegetatively propagating the cantaloupe plant grown from the depositedSUN PAC seed, said method comprising collecting a part of a plant grownfrom the deposited SUN PAC seed and regenerating a plant from said part.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises harvesting fruitsand/or seeds from said vegetatively propagated plant. In someembodiments, the method further comprises harvesting a fruit from saidvegetatively propagated plant.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches the plant and thefruits and/or seeds of plants vegetatively propagated from parts ofplants grown from the deposited SUN PAC seed. In some embodiments, suchplant, fruits and/or seeds have all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of plant, fruits and/or seeds of hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC (e.g. those listed in Table 1) when grown in the sameenvironmental conditions.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches methods of producinga cantaloupe plant derived from the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In someembodiment, the methods comprise (a) self-pollinating the plant grownfrom the deposited SUN PAC seed at least once to produce a progeny plantderived from cantaloupe hybrid SUN PAC. In some embodiments, the methodfurther comprises (b) crossing the progeny plant derived from cantaloupehybrid SUN PAC with itself or a second cantaloupe plant to produce aseed of a progeny plant of a subsequent generation; and; (c) growing theprogeny plant of the subsequent generation from the seed, and (d)crossing the progeny plant of the subsequent generation with itself or asecond cantaloupe plant to produce a cantaloupe plant derived from thehybrid cantaloupe variety SUN PAC. In some embodiments said methodsfurther comprise the step of: (e) repeating steps (b), (c) and/or (d)for at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or more generation to produce acantaloupe plant derived from the hybrid cantaloupe variety SUN PAC.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches methods of producinga cantaloupe plant derived from the hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC, themethods comprising (a) crossing the plant grown from the deposited SUNPAC seed with a second cantaloupe plant to produce a progeny plantderived from hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC. In some embodiments, the methodfurther comprises; (b) crossing the progeny plant derived from hybridcantaloupe SUN PAC with itself or a second cantaloupe plant to produce aseed of a progeny plant of a subsequent generation; and; (c) growing theprogeny plant of the subsequent generation from the seed; (d) crossingthe progeny plant of the subsequent generation with itself or a secondcantaloupe plant to produce a cantaloupe plant derived from the hybridcantaloupe variety SUN PAC. In some embodiments said methods furthercomprise the steps of: (e) repeating steps (b), (c) and/or (d) for atleast 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or more generations to produce a cantaloupeplant derived from the hybrid cantaloupe variety SUN PAC.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches plants grown fromthe deposited SUN PAC seed wherein said plants comprise a single locusconversion. As used herein, the term “a” or “an” refers to one or moreof that entity; for example, “a single locus conversion” refers to oneor more single locus conversions or at least one single locusconversion. As such, the terms “a” (or “an”), “one or more” and “atleast one” are used interchangeably herein. In addition, reference to“an element” by the indefinite article “a” or “an” does not exclude thepossibility that more than one of the elements are present, unless thecontext clearly requires that there is one and only one of the elements.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a method ofproducing a plant of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC comprising atleast one desired trait, the method comprising introducing a singlelocus conversion conferring the desired trait into hybrid cantaloupedesignated SUN PAC, whereby a plant of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUNPAC comprising the desired trait is produced.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches a cantaloupe plant,comprising a single locus conversion and essentially all of thecharacteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC when grown underthe same environmental conditions, wherein a representative sample ofseed of said hybrid has been deposited under NCIMB No. 43853. In otherembodiments, the single locus conversion is introduced into the plant bythe use of recurrent selection, mutation breeding, wherein said mutationbreeding selects for a mutation that is spontaneous or artificiallyinduced, backcrossing, pedigree breeding, haploid/double haploidproduction, marker-assisted selection, genetic transformation, genomicselection, Zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) technology, oligonucleotidedirected mutagenesis, cisgenesis, intragenesis, RNA-dependent DNAmethylation, agro-infiltration, Transcription Activation-Like EffectorNuclease (TALENs), CRISPR/Cas system, engineered meganuclease,re-engineered homing endonuclease, and DNA guided genome editing.

In some embodiments, the plant comprises 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,or more single locus conversions. In some embodiments, the plantcomprises no more than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 single locusconversions, but essentially all of the other physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC listedin Table 1. In some embodiments, the plant comprises at least one singlelocus conversion and essentially all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC listedin Table 1. In other embodiments, the plant comprises one single locusconversion and essentially all of the other physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC listedin Table 1.

In some embodiments, said single locus conversion confers said plantswith a trait selected from the group consisting of male sterility, malefertility, herbicide resistance, insect resistance, resistance forbacterial, fungal, mycoplasma or viral disease, enhanced plant qualitysuch as improved drought or salt tolerance, water stress tolerance,improved standability, enhanced plant vigor, improved shelf life,delayed senescence or controlled ripening, increased nutritional qualitysuch as increased sugar content or increased sweetness, increasedtexture, flavor and aroma, improved fruit length and/or size, protectionfor color, fruit shape, uniformity, length or diameter, refinement ordepth lodging resistance, yield and recovery when compared to a suitablecheck/comparison plant. In further embodiments, the single locusconversion confers said plant with herbicide resistance.

In some embodiments, the check plant is a hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC nothaving said single locus conversion conferring the desired trait(s). Insome embodiments, the at least one single locus conversion is anartificially mutated gene or a gene or nucleotide sequence modifiedthrough the use of New Breeding Techniques.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure teaches methods of producinga cantaloupe plant, comprising grafting a rootstock or a scion of thehybrid cantaloupe plant grown from the deposited SUN PAC seed to anothercantaloupe plant. In some embodiments, the present disclosure teachesmethods for producing nucleic acids, comprising isolating nucleic acidsfrom the plant grown from the deposited SUN PAC seed, or a part, or acell thereof. In some embodiments, the present disclosure teachesmethods for producing a second cantaloupe plant, comprising applyingplant breeding techniques to the plant grown from the deposited SUN PACseed, or part thereof to produce the second cantaloupe plant.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure provides a method ofproducing a commodity plant product comprising collecting the commodityplant product from the plant of the present disclosure. The commodityplant product produced by said method is also part of the presentdisclosure.

In addition to the exemplary aspects and embodiments described above,further aspects and embodiments will become apparent by study of thefollowing descriptions.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Definitions

In the description and tables that follow, a number of terms are used.In order to provide a clear and consistent understanding of thespecification and claims, including the scope to be given such terms,the following definitions are provided:

Abscission zone: This is the zone of abscission or separation of thefruit from the peduncle at maturity (controlled by ethylene). Theresulting zone (or scar) ranges in size, small being preferred overlarge—range small (<10 mm), medium (10-15 mm), large (15-20 mm), verylarge (>20 mm).

Adaptability: A plant that has adaptability is a plant able to grow wellin different growing conditions (climate, soils, etc.).

Allele: An allele is a variant form of a gene or locus.

Androecious plant: A plant having staminate flowers only.

Backcrossing: Backcrossing is a process in which a breeder repeatedlycrosses hybrid progeny back to one of the parents, for example, afirst-generation hybrid F₁ with one of the parental genotypes of the F₁hybrid.

Blossom scar: This is the remnant scar from the stigmatic surface of theblossom. There is a very broad range in sizes, small is better. Range issmall (<10 mm), medium (10-20 mm), large (20-40 mm) and very large (>40mm).

Cavity: As used herein, cavity refers to the center of the cantaloupefruit containing seeds and maternal tissues. Cavity measurements aremade on a single fruit or recorded as an average of many fruit atharvest maturity and recorded in a convenient unit of measure. Cavityratings: 1=very poor (non-marketable), 3=poor (non-marketable),5=average (marketable) 7=very good (much better than industrystandards), 9=superior (further improvement not attainable). Cavityevaluations are done based on a combination of the cavity size and thedegree of open space in the cavity. Very poor would be open and verylarge; superior would be very small and closed.

Cavity to Diameter ratio: Cavity to Diameter ratio is a measure of thecavity size compared to the overall fruit size of a single fruit or theaverage of many fruit at harvest maturity and recorded in a convenientunit of measure.

Commodity plant product: A “commodity plant product” refers to anycomposition or product that is comprised of material derived from aplant, seed, plant cell, or plant part of the present disclosure.Commodity plant products may be sold to consumers and can be viable ornonviable. Nonviable commodity products include but are not limited tononviable seeds and grains; processed seeds, seed parts, and plantparts; dehydrated plant tissue, frozen plant tissue, and processed planttissue; seeds and plant parts processed for animal feed for terrestrialand/or aquatic animal consumption, oil, meal, flour, flakes, bran,fiber, paper, tea, coffee, silage, crushed of whole grain, and any otherfood for human or animal consumption; biomasses and fuel products; andraw material in industry.

Collection of seeds: In the context of the present disclosure acollection of seeds is a grouping of seeds mainly containing similarkind of seeds, for example hybrid seeds of the disclosure, but that mayalso contain, mixed together with this first kind of seeds, a second,different kind of seeds, of one of the inbred parent lines. A commercialbag of hybrid seeds of the disclosure and containing also the inbredparental line seeds would be, for example such a collection of seeds.

Decreased vigor: A plant having a decreased vigor in the presentdisclosure is a plant that, compared to other plants has a less vigorousappearance for vegetative and/or reproductive characteristics includingbut not limited to shorter plant height, smaller fruit size, fewer fruitor other characteristics.

Earliness: The earliness relates the number of fruits produced from 12to 15 days following the beginning of the harvest: the more fruitsproduced, the more earliness of the plant

Easy to pick fruit: A fruit that is easy to pick is a fruit that easilydetaches from the plant. Once grabbed and twisted, the fruit will breakbetween the peduncle and the stem. For fruits not easy to pick, thepeduncle breaks off the fruits. A fruit that is easy to pick is also afruit that is easily accessible for harvest. When plants have an openplant habit, the fruits are harvested more easily than when the plantshave closed habit.

Enhanced nutritional quality: The nutritional quality of the cantaloupeof the present disclosure can be enhanced by the introduction of severaltraits comprising a higher endosperm sugar content, flesh texture, brix,aroma content and increased sweetness, increased lycopene content of thepeel, etc.

Essentially all of the physiological and morphological characteristics:A plant having essentially all of the physiological and morphologicalcharacteristics means a plant having all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of a plant of the present disclosure,except for example, additional traits and/or mutations which do notmaterially affect the plant of the present disclosure, or, a desiredcharacteristic(s), which can be indirectly obtained from another plantpossessing at least one single locus conversion via a conventionalbreeding program (such as backcross breeding) or directly obtained byintroduction of at least one single locus conversion via New BreedingTechniques. In some embodiments, one of the non-limiting examples for aplant having (and/or comprising) essentially all of the physiologicaland morphological characteristics shall be a plant having all of thephysiological and morphological characteristics of a plant of thepresent disclosure other than desired, additionaltrait(s)/characteristic(s) conferred by a single locus conversionincluding, but not limited to, a converted or modified gene.

Extended harvest: An extended harvest is a plant that produces fruitsthroughout the harvest season.

Flesh color: In the context of the present disclosure, the flesh coloris the color of the cantaloupe flesh.

Field holding ability: Field holding ability is the ability for fruitquality to maintain even after fruit is ripe.

Grafting: Grafting is the operation by which a rootstock is grafted witha scion. The primary motive for grafting is to avoid damages bysoil-born pest and pathogens when genetic or chemical approaches fordisease management are not available. Grafting a susceptible scion ontoa resistant rootstock can provide a resistant cultivar without the needto breed the resistance into the cultivar. In addition, grafting mayenhance tolerance to abiotic stress, increase yield and result in moreefficient water and nutrient uses.

Good Seed Producer: A plant is a good seed producer when it producesnumerous seeds. For cantaloupe, a good seed producing plant will producean average of 20 grams of seeds during the harvest season.

Gynoecious plant: A plant having pistillate flowers only.

Immunity to disease(s) and or insect(s): A cantaloupe plant which is notsubject to attack or infection by specific disease(s) and or insect(s)is considered immune.

Industrial usage: The industrial usage of the cantaloupe of the presentdisclosure comprises the use of the cantaloupe fruit for consumption,whether as fresh products or in canning, freezing or any otherindustries.

Intermediate resistance to disease(s) and or insect(s): A cantaloupeplant that restricts the growth and development of specific disease(s)and or insect(s), but may exhibit a greater range of symptoms or damagecompared to a resistant plant. Intermediate resistant plants willusually show less severe symptoms or damage than susceptible plantvarieties when grown under similar environmental conditions and/orspecific disease(s) and or insect(s) pressure, but may have heavy damageunder heavy pressure. Intermediate resistant cantaloupe plants are notimmune to the disease(s) and or insect(s).

Large plant: A large plant has long internodes with a plant height of 75cm and above. It depends on how the plant spreads out horizontally orvertically.

Long shelf-life (LSL): describes a cantaloupe plant that producessignificantly less ethylene (C2H4) than a non-LSL plant. Reducedethylene production slows the ripening process resulting in fruitshelf-life that is commonly 10-14 days longer than a non-LSL melon.

Monecious: The term used to describe a plant variety where each flowerexhibits only one sexual character (either male or female) and eachplant has flowers of both sexes.

Netting: The height and density of the netting (reticulation) thatcovers orange flesh melons. Range is fine, medium, medium coarse andcoarse. (i.e.—a fine net would be low and would have noticeable spacebetween the net, a coarse net would be quite high and almost completelycover the fruit exterior. Ideal net is medium or medium coarse. Nettingcan also be assigned a descriptive number 1=fine net to 10=coarse net.

New Breeding Techniques: New breeding techniques (NBTs) are said ofvarious new technologies developed and/or used to create newcharacteristics in plants through genetic variation, the aim beingtargeted mutagenesis, targeted introduction of new genes or genesilencing (RdDM). The following breeding techniques are within the scopeof NBTs: targeted sequence changes facilitated through the use of Zincfinger nuclease (ZFN) technology (ZFN-1, ZFN-2 and ZFN-3, see U.S. Pat.No. 9,145,565, incorporated by reference in its entirety),Oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis (ODM, a.k.a., site-directedmutagenesis), Cisgenesis and intragenesis, epigenetic approaches such asRNA-dependent DNA methylation (RdDM, which does not necessarily changenucleotide sequence but can change the biological activity of thesequence), Grafting (on GM rootstock), Reverse breeding,Agro-infiltration for transient gene expression (agro-infiltration“sensu stricto”, agro-inoculation, floral dip), TranscriptionActivator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,586,363and 9,181,535, incorporated by reference in their entireties), theCRISPR/Cas system (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,697,359; 8,771,945; 8,795,965;8,865,406; 8,871,445; 8,889,356; 8,895,308; 8,906,616; 8,932,814;8,945,839; 8,993,233; and 8,999,641, which are all hereby incorporatedby reference), engineered meganuclease, re-engineered homingendonucleases, DNA guided genome editing (Gao et al., NatureBiotechnology (2016), doi: 10.1038/nbt.3547, incorporated by referencein its entirety), and Synthetic genomics. A major part of today'stargeted genome editing, another designation for New BreedingTechniques, is the applications to induce a DNA double strand break(DSB) at a selected location in the genome where the modification isintended. Directed repair of the DSB allows for targeted genome editing.Such applications can be utilized to generate mutations (e.g., targetedmutations or precise native gene editing) as well as precise insertionof genes (e.g., cisgenes, intragenes, or transgenes). The applicationsleading to mutations are often identified as site-directed nuclease(SDN) technology, such as SDN1, SDN2 and SDN3. For SDN1, the outcome isa targeted, non-specific genetic deletion mutation: the position of theDNA DSB is precisely selected, but the DNA repair by the host cell israndom and results in small nucleotide deletions, additions orsubstitutions. For SDN2, a SDN is used to generate a targeted DSB and aDNA repair template (a short DNA sequence identical to the targeted DSBDNA sequence except for one or a few nucleotide changes) is used torepair the DSB: this results in a targeted and predetermined pointmutation in the desired gene of interest. As to the SDN3, the SDN isused along with a DNA repair template that contains new DNA sequence(e.g. gene). The outcome of the technology would be the integration ofthat DNA sequence into the plant genome. The most likely applicationillustrating the use of SDN3 would be the insertion of cisgenic,intragenic, or transgenic expression cassettes at a selected genomelocation. A complete description of each of these techniques can befound in the report made by the Joint Research Center (JRC) Institutefor Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission in 2011and titled “New plant breeding techniques—State-of-the-art and prospectsfor commercial development”, which is incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

Number of Boxes per Acre: The Number of Boxes per Acre—6's, 9's, 12's,15's, 18's or 23's refers to the number of fruit that fit into astandard cantaloupe box.

Open Plant Habit: An open plant habit is a plant where the fruits arevisible without moving the leaves. A plant with closed habit will haveits fruit hidden by leaves that have a high density. An average openplant habit will be between the open and closed habit, and the plantwill have medium leaf density. Whether a plant has open habit or closedhabit is based on the whole of the plant. The more erect the plant, themore compact and therefore the closer the habit. In contrast, when theplant is lodging, sprawling on the ground, it leads to a less compactplant, therefore more “open”.

Overall Rating: A final or Overall Rating is assigned to varietyperformance or a varieties characteristic in test or trial situations ofa variety. Overall Rating can range from 1=very poor to 10 excellent.

Oval: Oval is used to describe fruit shape when the length is greaterthan the width and ranges from a slight oval, oval to heavy oval.

Plant adaptability: A plant having good plant adaptability means a plantthat will perform well in different growing conditions and seasons.

Plant cell: As used herein, the term “plant cell” includes plant cellswhether isolated, in tissue culture, or incorporated in a plant or plantpart.

Plant Part: As used herein, the term “plant part”, “part thereof” or“parts thereof” includes plant cells, plant protoplasts, plant celltissue cultures from which cantaloupe plants can be regenerated, plantcalli, plant clumps and plant cells that are intact in plants or partsof plants, such as embryos, pollens, ovules, flowers, seeds, fruits,rootstocks, scions, stems, roots, anthers, pistils, root tips, leaves,meristematic cells, axillary buds, hypocotyls, cotyledons, ovaries, seedcoats, endosperms and the like. In some embodiments, the plant part atleast comprises at least one cell of said plant. In some embodiments,the plant part is further defined as a pollen, a meristem, a cell or anovule. In some embodiments, a plant regenerated from the plant part hasall of the phenotypic and morphological characteristics of a cantaloupehybrid of the present disclosure, including but not limited to asdetermined at the 5% significance level when grown in the sameenvironmental conditions.

Plant Habit: A plant can be an upright plant (also called erect)providing good coverage for the fruit or it can be open with a weakerhabit exposing the fruit

Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL): Quantitative trait loci refer to geneticloci that control to some degree numerically representable traits thatare usually continuously distributed.

Regeneration: Regeneration refers to the development of a plant fromtissue culture.

Resistance to disease(s) and or insect(s): A cantaloupe plant thatrestricts the growth and development of specific disease(s) and orinsect(s) under normal disease(s) and or insect(s) attack pressure whencompared to susceptible plants. These cantaloupe plants can exhibit somesymptoms or damage under heavy disease(s) and or insect(s) pressure.Resistant cantaloupe plants are not immune to the disease(s) and orinsect(s).

Rind Contrast: A subjective measure of the color difference between therind and the fruit flesh. 1=no contrast to 10=excellent contrast.

Ribs: The ribs on the fruit may be prominent, inconspicuous ornonexistent. They refer to the ridges along the fruit mostly near thepeduncle.

Rootstock: A rootstock is the lower part of a plant capable of receivinga scion in a grafting process.

RHS: RHS refers to the Royal Horticultural Society of England whichpublishes an official botanical color chart quantitatively identifyingcolors according to a defined numbering system. The chart may bepurchased from Royal Hort. Society Enterprise Ltd. RHS Garden; Wisley,Woking, Surrey GU236QB, UK.

Scion: A scion is the higher part of a plant capable of being graftedonto a rootstock in a grafting process.

Relative maturity or maturity: Maturity is considered the date of theonset of harvest and is classified as Very Early, Early, Mid Early, Mainand Late or specified by recording the date of the onset of harvest. Inthe region of best adaptability, maturity is the number of days fromtransplanting to optimal time for fruit harvest. In this region, amid-early maturity plant is a plant that is harvested approximately 50days after sowing. An early maturity plant would have 45 days fromplanting to harvest while a late maturity plant will have 55 days untilharvest.

Semi-erect habit: A semi-erect plant has a combination of lateral andupright branching and has an intermediate type habit between a prostateplant habit, having laterally growing branching with fruits most of thetime on the ground and an erect plant habit with branching goingstraight up with fruit being off the ground.

Fruit shape: Refers to external fruit shape. Range is Flat Round, Round,round oval, oval, elongate.

Single locus converted (conversion): Single locus converted (conversion)plants refer to plants which are developed by a plant breeding techniquecalled backcrossing, wherein essentially all of the desiredmorphological and physiological characteristics of a plant are recoveredin addition to a single locus transferred into the plant via thebackcrossing technique or via genetic engineering. A single locusconverted plant can also be referred to a plant with a single locusconversion obtained though simultaneous and/or artificially inducedmutagenesis or through the use of New Breeding Techniques described inthe present disclosure. In some embodiments, the single locus convertedplant has essentially all of the desired morphological and physiologicalcharacteristics of the original variety in addition to a single locusconverted by spontaneous and/or artificially induced mutations, which isintroduced and/or transferred into the plant by the plant breedingtechniques such as backcrossing. In other embodiments, the single locusconverted plant has essentially all of the desired morphological andphysiological characteristics of the original variety in addition to asingle locus, gene or nucleotide sequence(s) converted, mutated,modified or engineered through the New Breeding Techniques taughtherein. In the present disclosure, single locus converted (conversion)can be interchangeably referred to single gene converted (conversion).

Soluble Solids: Soluble solids refer to the percent of solid materialfound in the fruit tissue, the vast majority of which are sugars.Soluble solids are estimated with a refractometer and measured asdegrees Brix. Soluble Solids vary with environment. For example, forCalifornia summer growing conditions the following range would apply.Very high (>12.5%), high (11.5-12.5%), medium (10.5-11.5%), low<10.5%).

Susceptible to disease(s) and or insect(s): A cantaloupe plant that issusceptible to disease(s) and or insect(s) is defined as a cantaloupeplant that has the inability to restrict the growth and development ofspecific disease(s) and or insect(s). Plants that are susceptible willshow damage when infected and are more likely to have heavy damage undermoderate levels of specific disease(s) and or insect(s).

Tolerance to abiotic stresses: A cantaloupe plant that is tolerant toabiotic stresses has the ability to endure abiotic stress withoutserious consequences for growth, appearance and yield.

Uniformity: Uniformity, as used herein, describes the similarity betweenplants or plant characteristics which can be a described by qualitativeor quantitative measurements.

Variety: A plant variety as used by one skilled in the art of plantbreeding means a plant grouping within a single botanical taxon of thelowest known rank which can be defined by the expression of thecharacteristics resulting from a given genotype or combination ofphenotypes, distinguished from any other plant grouping by theexpression of at least one of the said characteristics and considered asa unit with regard to its suitability for being propagated unchanged(International convention for the protection of new varieties ofplants). The term “variety” can be interchangeably used with “cultivar”or “hybrid in the present application”.

Vine Overall: An overall rating assigned to the performance of a plant'svine. Vine Overall can range from 1=very poor to 10 excellent.

Yield: Yield Type is defined as concentrated, semi concentrated orextended. Concentrated=harvested yield produced in consecutive (2-3days) of harvest. Semi concentrated=harvested yield produced within 3-5days. Extended=harvested yield is produced over the course of 6-10 days.The Fruit Set may also be defined accordingly to the same criteria, i.e.very concentrated, when the plant sets all of its fruit at nearly thesame time; concentrated, when the plant sets all its fruits in a shortperiod of time; semi concentrated, when fruit set is less uniform; andextended, when the plant sets and matures fruit to allow picking over along period of time.

Yield Rating: is defined as an overall rating assigned to the relativeyield. Yield Rating can range from 1=very poor to 9=excellent.

Cantaloupe Plants

Practically speaking, all cultivated forms of cantaloupe belong to thehighly polymorphic species Cucumis melo L. that is grown for its sweetedible fruit. The term cantaloupe, as used herein, describes the nettedmelons commonly referred to as cantaloupe or muskmelon in U.S. commerce,but also includes smooth types in the honeydew group. As a crop,cantaloupes are grown commercially wherever environmental conditionspermit the production of an economically viable yield. They are producedon non-climbing vines that are cultivated prostrate on the soil. Onhealthy plants there is a canopy of large, soft, hairy leaves, generallyheart shaped and somewhat lobed. Fruits may be orange fleshed or greenfleshed.

The fruit surface is generally netted and roughened and, in somevarieties, sutured. Fruit shape is generally round to oval and ranges insize from five to eight inches long and about equal in diameter.Cantaloupe is considered a very tender warm season crop but can beproduced in all areas of the World where optimum temperatures of 65-75°F. occur for at least 120 frost-free days. Commercial yields areconsidered “good” when over 20,000 of marketable fruit are harvested peracre. Typically, productions fields are harvested multiple times by handand the fruit may be picked before ripening and shipped long distancesto the end market. In the United States, the principal fresh marketcantaloupe growing regions are California, Arizona and Texas whichproduce approximately 96,000 acres out of a total annual acreage of morethan 113,000 acres (USDA, 1998).

Fresh cantaloupes are available in the United States year-round althoughthe greatest supply is from June through October. Fresh cantaloupes areconsumed in many forms. They are eaten sliced or diced and used as aningredient in many prepared foods, such as the popular consumption ofmelon pieces wrapped in prosciutto ham.

Cucumis melo is a member of the family Cucurbitaceae. The Cucurbitaceaeis a family of about 90 genera and 700 to 760 species, mostly of thetropics. The family includes cantaloupes, squashes, gourds, watermelon,loofah and several weeds. The genus Cucumis, to which the cantaloupe,cucumbers, and several melons belong, includes about 70 species. Cucumismelo includes a wide range of cultivated plants. Although crossesoutside the species are sterile, intraspecific crosses are generallyfertile, resulting in a range of variation. The more common cultivatedplants fall into four main groups. First are the true cantaloupes ofEurope. These have thick, scaly, rough, often deeply grooved, but notnetted rinds. Second are the muskmelons, mostly grown in the UnitedStates, where they are incorrectly called cantaloupes. These have finelynetted rinds with shallow ribs. Third are the casaba or winter melonswith large fruits. These have smooth, often yellow rinds. The honeydewmelons are in this third group. Fourth are a group of elongated melonsof India, China and Japan which are grown as vegetables. Otherclassification schemes and cultivars could be presented.

Cantaloupe is a simple diploid species with twelve pairs of highlydifferentiated chromosomes. The Cucumis melo genome includes over 375 Mbof sequence with an estimated 27,427 protein-coding genes (Garcia-Mas etal., (2012. The genome of melon (Cucumis melo L.). PNAS July issue).

Large field spaces are required for cantaloupe and the need for laborintensive hand pollination for self as well as cross pollination hasresulted in a lag in the knowledge of cantaloupe genetics relative tosuch crops as tomato. Cantaloupe flowers open after sunrise; the exacttime depends on environmental conditions such as sunlight, temperatureand humidity. The flower closes permanently in the afternoon of the sameday. Almost all pollen is collected and transferred before noon.Typically, flowers are staminate although some are also hermaphroditic.Although hermaphroditic flowers are self-fertile, they are incapable ofperforming self-pollination. Insects are required for pollination. Theprimary pollinators are bees, particularly honey bees.

There are numerous steps in the development of any novel, desirableplant germplasm. Plant breeding begins with the analysis and definitionof problems and weaknesses of the current germplasm, the establishmentof program goals, and the definition of specific breeding objectives.The next step is selection of germplasm that possesses the traits tomeet the program goals. The goal is to combine in a single variety orhybrid an improved combination of desirable traits from the parentalgermplasm.

In cantaloupe, these important traits may include higher yield, fieldperformance, fruit and agronomic quality such as sugar levels, smallcavity size, flesh color or texture, rind firmness or strong net,resistance to diseases and insects, ease of fruit setting, adaptabilityfor soil and climate conditions, field holding, harvest flexibility andtolerance to drought and heat.

In some embodiments, particularly desirable traits that may beincorporated by this disclosure are improved resistance to differentviral, fungal, and bacterial pathogens and improved resistance to insectpests. Important diseases include but are not limited to Powdery mildew(Sphaerothica fuligenea), Fusarium wilt race 0,1,2 (Fusarium oxysporummelonis), Downy mildew (Pseudoperonospora cubensis), Cucumber mosaicvirus, watermelon mosaic virus, zucchini mosaic virus, papaya ringspotvirus, melon aphid (Aphys gossyppi).

Other desirable traits include traits related to improved cantaloupefruits. A non-limiting list of fruit phenotypes used during breedingselection include:

-   -   Firm fruit exterior: Fruit Firmness subjectively tested under        field conditions for resistance of fruit exterior against a        given pressure. Range is soft, medium, firm and very firm. Fruit        exterior firmness may also be measured as lbs/square inch        resistance.    -   Flesh color: Flesh color can be white, greenish white, green,        yellowish white, orange, reddish orange and is rated as the        degree of intensity of the color. Flesh color ratings 1=very        poor (non-marketable), 3=poor (non-marketable), 5=average        (marketable) 7=very good (much better than industry standards),        9=superior (further improvement not attainable).    -   Flesh firmness: Flesh firmness subjectively tested under field        conditions for resistance of flesh against a given pressure.        Firmness ratings 1=very poor (non-marketable), 3=poor        (non-marketable), 5=average (marketable) 7=very good (much        better than industry standards), 9=superior (further improvement        not attainable). Fruit flesh firmness may also be measured as        lbs/square inch resistance.    -   Fruit Diameter: The cross-sectional diameter of a single fruit        of the average of many fruit measured at harvest maturity and        recorded in a convenient unit of measure.    -   Fruit Length: The longitudinal length of a single fruit or the        average of many fruit measure from stem to blossom end at        harvest maturity and recorded in a convenient unit of measure.    -   Fruit size: Western Shipper fruit size determined two ways 1/.        Range in kilograms: small (below 1.5), medium (1.5-1.8), large        (1.8-2.2), very large (above 2.2) 2/. Number of fruit that fit        into a standard western melon packing box: 6, 9, 12, 15, 18,        23, 30. Small: some 18's, 23's, 30's, Medium: some 12's, 15's        18's, Large: 9's, 12's, few 15's and Extra Large: few 6's, 9's        few 12's.    -   Fruit Weight: The weight of a single fruit or the average of        many fruit measured at harvest maturity and recorded in a        convenient unit of measure.        Cantaloupe Breeding

The goal of cantaloupe breeding is to develop new, unique and superiorcantaloupe inbred lines and hybrids. The breeder initially selects andcrosses two or more parental lines, followed by repeated selfing andselection, producing many new genetic combinations. Another method usedto develop new, unique and superior cantaloupe inbred lines and hybridsoccurs when the breeder selects and crosses two or more parental linesfollowed by haploid induction and chromosome doubling that result in thedevelopment of dihaploid inbred lines. The breeder can theoreticallygenerate billions of different genetic combinations via crossing,selfing and mutations and the same is true for the utilization of thedihaploid breeding method.

Each year, the plant breeder selects the germplasm to advance to thenext generation. This germplasm is grown under unique and differentgeographical, climatic and soil conditions, and further selections arethen made, during and at the end of the growing season. The inbred linesdeveloped are unpredictable. This unpredictability is because thebreeder's selection occurs in unique environments, with no control atthe DNA level (using conventional breeding procedures or dihaploidbreeding procedures), and with millions of different possible geneticcombinations being generated. A breeder of ordinary skill in the artcannot predict the final resulting lines the breeder develops, exceptpossibly in a very gross and general fashion. This unpredictabilityresults in the expenditure of large research monies to develop superiornew cantaloupe inbred lines and hybrids.

The development of commercial cantaloupe hybrids requires thedevelopment of homozygous inbred lines, the crossing of these lines, andthe evaluation of the hybrid crosses.

Pedigree breeding and recurrent selection breeding methods are used todevelop inbred lines from breeding populations. Breeding programscombine desirable traits from two or more inbred lines or variousbroad-based sources into breeding pools from which inbred lines aredeveloped by selfing and selection of desired phenotypes or through thedihaploid breeding method followed by the selection of desiredphenotypes. The new inbreds are crossed with other inbred lines and thehybrids from these crosses are evaluated to determine which havecommercial potential.

Choice of breeding or selection methods depends on the mode of plantreproduction, the heritability of the trait(s) being improved, and thetype of cultivar used commercially (e.g., F₁ hybrid cultivar, purelinecultivar, etc.). For highly heritable traits, a choice of superiorindividual plants evaluated at a single location will be effective,whereas for traits with low heritability, selection should be based onmean values obtained from replicated evaluations of families of relatedplants. Popular selection methods commonly include pedigree selection,modified pedigree selection, mass selection, recurrent selection, andbackcross breeding.

i. Pedigree Selection

Pedigree breeding is used commonly for the improvement ofself-pollinating crops or inbred lines of cross-pollinating crops. Twoparents possessing favorable, complementary traits are crossed toproduce an F₁. An F₂ population is produced by selfing one or severalF₁s or by intercrossing two F₁s (sib mating). The dihaploid breedingmethod could also be used. Selection of the best individuals is usuallybegun in the F₂ population; then, beginning in the F₃, the bestindividuals in the best families are selected. Replicated testing offamilies, or hybrid combinations involving individuals of thesefamilies, often follows in the F₄ generation to improve theeffectiveness of selection for traits with low heritability. At anadvanced stage of inbreeding (i.e., F₆ and F₇), the best lines ormixtures of phenotypically similar lines are tested for potential use asparents of new hybrid cultivars. Similarly, the development of newinbred lines through the dihaploid system requires the selection of thebest inbreds followed by two to five years of testing in hybridcombinations in replicated plots.

The single-seed descent procedure in the strict sense refers to plantinga segregating population, harvesting a sample of one seed per plant, andusing the one-seed sample to plant the next generation. When thepopulation has been advanced from the F₂ to the desired level ofinbreeding, the plants from which lines are derived will each trace todifferent F₂ individuals. The number of plants in a population declineseach generation due to failure of some seeds to germinate or some plantsto produce at least one seed. As a result, not all of the F₂ plantsoriginally sampled in the population will be represented by a progenywhen generation advance is completed.

In a multiple-seed procedure, breeders commonly harvest one or morefruit containing seed from each plant in a population and blend themtogether to form a bulk seed lot. Part of the bulked seed is used toplant the next generation and part is put in reserve. The procedure hasbeen referred to as modified single-seed descent or the bulk technique.

The multiple-seed procedure has been used to save labor at harvest. Itis considerably faster than removing one seed from each fruit by handfor the single seed procedure. The multiple-seed procedure also makes itpossible to plant the same number of seeds of a population eachgeneration of inbreeding. Enough seeds are harvested to make up forthose plants that did not germinate or produce seed.

Descriptions of other breeding methods that are commonly used fordifferent traits and crops can be found in one of several referencebooks (e.g., R. W. Allard, 1960, Principles of Plant Breeding, JohnWiley and Son, pp. 115-161; N. W. Simmonds, 1979, Principles of CropImprovement, Longman Group Limited; W. R. Fehr, 1987, Principles of CropDevelopment, Macmillan Publishing Co.; N. F. Jensen, 1988, PlantBreeding Methodology, John Wiley & Sons).

ii. Backcross Breeding

Backcross breeding has been used to transfer genes for a simplyinherited, highly heritable trait into a desirable homozygous cultivaror inbred line which is the recurrent parent. The source of the trait tobe transferred is called the donor parent. The resulting plant isexpected to have the attributes of the recurrent parent (e.g., cultivar)and the desirable trait transferred from the donor parent. After theinitial cross, individuals possessing the phenotype recurrent parent andthe trait of interest from the donor parent are selected and repeatedlycrossed (backcrossed) to the recurrent parent. The resulting plant isexpected to have the attributes of the recurrent parent (e.g., cultivar)and the desirable trait transferred from the donor parent.

When the term hybrid cantaloupe plant is used in the context of thepresent disclosure, this also includes any hybrid cantaloupe plant whereone or more desired traits have been introduced through backcrossingmethods, whether such trait is a naturally occurring one, a mutant, atransgenic one or a gene or a nucleotide sequence modified by the use ofNew Breeding Techniques. Backcrossing methods can be used with thepresent disclosure to improve or introduce one or more characteristicinto the inbred parental line, thus potentially introducing these traitsin to the hybrid cantaloupe plant of the present disclosure. The term“backcrossing” as used herein refers to the repeated crossing of ahybrid progeny back to the recurrent parent, i.e., backcrossing one,two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, or more times to therecurrent parent. The parental cantaloupe plant which contributes thegene or the genes for the desired characteristic is termed thenonrecurrent or donor parent. This terminology refers to the fact thatthe nonrecurrent parent is used one time in the backcross protocol andtherefore does not recur. The parental cantaloupe plant to which thegene or genes from the nonrecurrent parent are transferred is known asthe recurrent parent as it is used for several rounds in thebackcrossing protocol.

In a typical backcross protocol, the original inbred of interest(recurrent parent) is crossed to or by a second inbred (nonrecurrentparent) that carries the gene or genes of interest to be transferred.The resulting progeny from this cross are then crossed again to or bythe recurrent parent and the process is repeated until a cantaloupeplant is obtained wherein all of the desired morphological andphysiological characteristics of the recurrent parent are recovered inthe converted plant, generally determined at a 5% significance levelwhen grown in the same environmental conditions, in addition to the geneor genes transferred from the nonrecurrent parent. It has to be notedthat some, one, two, three or more, self-pollination and growing ofpopulation might be included between two successive backcrosses. Indeed,an appropriate selection in the population produced by theself-pollination, i.e. selection for the desired trait and physiologicaland morphological characteristics of the recurrent parent might beequivalent to one, two or even three additional backcrosses in acontinuous series without rigorous selection, saving then time, moneyand effort to the breeder. A non-limiting example of such a protocolwould be the following: a) the first generation F₁ produced by the crossof the recurrent parent A by the donor parent B is backcrossed to parentA, b) selection is practiced for the plants having the desired trait ofparent B, c) selected plant are self-pollinated to produce a populationof plants where selection is practiced for the plants having the desiredtrait of parent B and physiological and morphological characteristics ofparent A, d) the selected plants are backcrossed one, two, three, four,five, six, seven, eight, nine, or more times to parent A to produceselected backcross progeny plants comprising the desired trait of parentB and the physiological and morphological characteristics of parent A.Step (c) may or may not be repeated and included between the backcrossesof step (d).

The selection of a suitable recurrent parent is an important step for asuccessful backcrossing procedure. The goal of a backcross protocol isto alter or substitute one or more trait(s) or characteristic(s) in theoriginal inbred parental line in order to find it then in the hybridmade thereof. To accomplish this, a gene or genes of the recurrentinbred is modified or substituted with the desired gene or genes fromthe nonrecurrent parent, while retaining essentially all the rest of thedesired genetic, and therefore the desired physiological andmorphological, constitution of the original inbred. The choice of theparticular nonrecurrent parent will depend on the purpose of thebackcross; one of the major purposes is to add some commerciallydesirable, agronomically important trait(s) to the plant. The exactbackcrossing protocol will depend on the characteristic(s) or trait(s)being altered to determine an appropriate testing protocol. Althoughbackcrossing methods are simplified when the characteristic beingtransferred is a single gene and dominant allele, multiple genes andrecessive allele(s) may also be transferred and therefore, backcrossbreeding is by no means restricted to character(s) governed by one or afew genes. In fact, the number of genes might be less important that theidentification of the character(s) in the segregating population. Inthis instance it may then be necessary to introduce a test of theprogeny to determine if the desired characteristic(s) has beensuccessfully transferred. Such tests encompass visual inspection, simplecrossing, but also follow up of the characteristic(s) throughgenetically associated markers and molecular assisted breeding tools.For example, selection of progeny containing the transferred trait isdone by direct selection, visual inspection for a trait associated witha dominant allele, while the selection of progeny for a trait that istransferred via a recessive allele, such as cantaloupe leaf curl virusresistance in cantaloupe, requires selfing the progeny or usingmolecular markers to determine which plant carry the recessiveallele(s).

Many single gene traits have been identified that are not regularlyselected for in the development of a new parental inbred of a hybridcantaloupe plant according to the disclosure but that can be improved bybackcrossing techniques. Single gene traits may or may not betransgenic. Examples of these traits include but are not limited to,male sterility (such as a PR glucanase gene or the ms1, ms2, ms3, ms4 orms5 genes), herbicide resistance (such as bar or PAT genes), gynoecia(such as the g gene), resistance for bacterial, fungal (genes Fom-1 andFom-2 for resistance to fusarium wilt), or viral disease (gene nsv forresistance to melon necrotic spot virus, gene ZYM for the resistance tothe zucchini yellow mosaic virus), insect resistance (gene Vat forresistance to Aphis gossypii), male fertility, enhanced nutritionalquality, enhanced sugar content, yield stability and yield enhancement.These genes are generally inherited through the nucleus. Some knownexceptions to this are the genes for male sterility, some of which areinherited cytoplasmically, but still act as single gene traits. Severalof these single gene traits are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,777,196;5,948,957 and 5,969,212, the disclosures of which are specificallyhereby incorporated by reference.

In 1981, the backcross method of breeding counted for 17% of the totalbreeding effort for inbred line development in the United States,accordingly to, Hallauer, A. R. et al. (1988) “Corn Breeding” Corn andCorn Improvement, No. 18, pp. 463-481.

The backcross breeding method provides a precise way of improvingvarieties that excel in a large number of attributes but are deficientin a few characteristics. (Page 150 of the Pr. R. W. Allard's 1960 book,published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Principles of Plant Breeding). Themethod makes use of a series of backcrosses to the variety to beimproved during which the character or the characters in whichimprovement is sought is maintained by selection. At the end of thebackcrossing the gene or genes being transferred unlike all other genes,will be heterozygous. Selfing after the last backcross produceshomozygosity for this gene pair(s) and, coupled with selection, willresult in a parental line of a hybrid variety with exactly oressentially the same adaptation, yielding ability and qualitycharacteristics of the recurrent parent but superior to that parent inthe particular characteristic(s) for which the improvement program wasundertaken. Therefore, this method provides the plant breeder with ahigh degree of genetic control of this work.

The method is scientifically exact because the morphological andagricultural features of the improved variety could be described inadvance and because a similar variety could, if it were desired, be breda second time by retracing the same steps (Briggs, “Breeding wheatsresistant to bunt by the backcross method”, 1930 Jour. Amer. Soc.Agron., 22: 289-244).

Backcrossing is a powerful mechanism for achieving homozygosity and anypopulation obtained by backcrossing must rapidly converge on thegenotype of the recurrent parent. When backcrossing is made the basis ofa plant breeding program, the genotype of the recurrent parent will betheoretically modified only with regards to genes being transferred,which are maintained in the population by selection.

Successful backcrosses are, for example, the transfer of stem rustresistance from ‘Hope’ wheat to ‘Bart wheat’ and even pursuing thebackcrosses with the transfer of bunt resistance to create ‘Bart 38’,having both resistances. Also highlighted by Allard is the successfultransfer of mildew, leaf spot and wilt resistances in California Commonalfalfa to create ‘Caliverde’. This new ‘Caliverde’ variety producedthrough the backcross process is indistinguishable from CaliforniaCommon except for its resistance to the three named diseases.

One of the advantages of the backcross method is that the breedingprogram can be carried out in almost every environment that will allowthe development of the character being transferred or when usingmolecular markers that can identify the trait of interest.

The backcross technique is not only desirable when breeding for diseaseresistance but also for the adjustment of morphological characters,color characteristics and simply inherited quantitative characters suchas earliness, plant height and seed size and shape.

iii. Open-Pollinated Populations

The improvement of open-pollinated populations of such crops as rye,many maizes and sugar beets, herbage grasses, legumes such as alfalfaand clover, and tropical tree crops such as cacao, coconuts, oil palmand some rubber, depends essentially upon changing gene-frequenciestowards fixation of favorable alleles while maintaining a high (but farfrom maximal) degree of heterozygosity.

Uniformity in such populations is impossible and trueness-to-type in anopen-pollinated variety is a statistical feature of the population as awhole, not a characteristic of individual plants. Thus, theheterogeneity of open-pollinated populations contrasts with thehomogeneity (or virtually so) of inbred lines, clones and hybrids.

Population improvement methods fall naturally into two groups, thosebased on purely phenotypic selection, normally called mass selection,and those based on selection with progeny testing. Interpopulationimprovement utilizes the concept of open breeding populations; allowinggenes to flow from one population to another. Plants in one population(cultivar, strain, ecotype, or any germplasm source) are crossed eithernaturally (e.g., by wind) or by hand or by bees (commonly Apis melliferaL. or Megachile rotundata F.) with plants from other populations.Selection is applied to improve one (or sometimes both) population(s) byisolating plants with desirable traits from both sources.

There are basically two primary methods of open-pollinated populationimprovement.

First, there is the situation in which a population is changed en masseby a chosen selection procedure. The outcome is an improved populationthat is indefinitely propagated by random-mating within itself inisolation.

Second, the synthetic variety attains the same end result as populationimprovement, but is not itself propagated as such; it has to bereconstructed from parental lines or clones. These plant breedingprocedures for improving open-pollinated populations are well known tothose skilled in the art and comprehensive reviews of breedingprocedures routinely used for improving cross-pollinated plants areprovided in numerous texts and articles, including: Allard, Principlesof Plant Breeding, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (1960); Simmonds, Principlesof Crop Improvement, Longman Group Limited (1979); Hallauer and Miranda,Quantitative Genetics in Maize Breeding, Iowa State University Press(1981); and, Jensen, Plant Breeding Methodology, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.(1988).

A) Mass Selection

Mass and recurrent selections can be used to improve populations ofeither self- or cross-pollinating crops. A genetically variablepopulation of heterozygous individuals is either identified or createdby intercrossing several different parents. The best plants are selectedbased on individual superiority, outstanding progeny, or excellentcombining ability. The selected plants are intercrossed to produce a newpopulation in which further cycles of selection are continued. In massselection, desirable individual plants are chosen, harvested, and theseed composited without progeny testing to produce the followinggeneration. Since selection is based on the maternal parent only, andthere is no control over pollination, mass selection amounts to a formof random mating with selection. As stated above, the purpose of massselection is to increase the proportion of superior genotypes in thepopulation.

B) Synthetics

A synthetic variety is produced by intercrossing a number of genotypesselected for good combining ability in all possible hybrid combinations,with subsequent maintenance of the variety by open pollination. Whetherparents are (more or less inbred) seed-propagated lines, as in somesugar beet and beans (Vicia) or clones, as in herbage grasses, cloversand alfalfa, makes no difference in principle. Parents are selected ongeneral combining ability, sometimes by test crosses or topcrosses, moregenerally by polycrosses. Parental seed lines may be deliberately inbred(e.g. by selfing or sib crossing). However, even if the parents are notdeliberately inbred, selection within lines during line maintenance willensure that some inbreeding occurs. Clonal parents will, of course,remain unchanged and highly heterozygous.

Whether a synthetic can go straight from the parental seed productionplot to the farmer or must first undergo one or more cycles ofmultiplication depends on seed production and the scale of demand forseed. In practice, grasses and clovers are generally multiplied once ortwice and are thus considerably removed from the original synthetic.

While mass selection is sometimes used, progeny testing is generallypreferred for polycrosses, because of their operational simplicity andobvious relevance to the objective, namely exploitation of generalcombining ability in a synthetic.

The number of parental lines or clones that enters a synthetic varieswidely. In practice, numbers of parental lines range from 10 to severalhundred, with 100-200 being the average. Broad based synthetics formedfrom 100 or more clones would be expected to be more stable during seedmultiplication than narrow based synthetics.

iv. Hybrids

A hybrid is an individual plant resulting from a cross between parentsof differing genotypes. Commercial hybrids are now used extensively inmany crops, including corn (maize), sorghum, sugarbeet, sunflower,broccoli and tomato as well as leafy vegetables such as lettuce. Hybridscan be formed in a number of different ways, including by crossing twoparents directly (single cross hybrids), by crossing a single crosshybrid with another parent (three-way or triple cross hybrids), or bycrossing two different hybrids (four-way or double cross hybrids).

Strictly speaking, most individuals in an out breeding (i.e.,open-pollinated) population are hybrids, but the term is usuallyreserved for cases in which the parents are individuals whose genomesare sufficiently distinct for them to be recognized as different speciesor subspecies. Hybrids may be fertile or sterile depending onqualitative and/or quantitative differences in the genomes of the twoparents. Heterosis, or hybrid vigor, is usually associated withincreased heterozygosity that results in increased vigor of growth,survival, and fertility of hybrids as compared with the parental linesthat were used to form the hybrid. Maximum heterosis is usually achievedby crossing two genetically different, highly inbred lines.

Hybrid commercial cantaloupe seed can be produced by controlled handpollination. The male flowers from the male plants are harvested andused to pollinate the stigmatic surface of the female flowers on thefemale plants. Prior to, and after hand pollination, flowers are coveredso that insects do not bring foreign pollen and create a mix orimpurity. Flowers are tagged to identify pollinated fruit from whichseed will be harvested.

Once the inbreds that give the best hybrid performance have beenidentified, the hybrid seed can be reproduced indefinitely as long asthe homogeneity of the inbred parent is maintained. A single-crosshybrid is produced when two inbred lines are crossed to produce the F₁progeny. A double-cross hybrid is produced from four inbred linescrossed in pairs (A×B and C×D) and then the two F₁ hybrids are crossedagain (A×B)×(C×D). Much of the hybrid vigor and uniformity exhibited byF₁ hybrids is lost in the next generation (F₂). Consequently, seed fromF₂ hybrid varieties is not used for planting stock.

The production of hybrids is a well-developed industry, involving theisolated production of both the parental lines and the hybrids whichresult from crossing those lines. For a detailed discussion of thehybrid production process, see, e.g., Wright, Commercial Hybrid SeedProduction 8:161-176, In Hybridization of Crop Plants.

v. Bulk Segregation Analysis (BSA)

BSA, a.k.a. bulked segregation analysis, or bulk segregant analysis, isa method described by Michelmore et al. (Michelmore et al., 1991,Identification of markers linked to disease-resistance genes by bulkedsegregant analysis: a rapid method to detect markers in specific genomicregions by using segregating populations. Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences, USA, 99:9828-9832) and Quarrie et al. (Quarrie etal., 1999, Journal of Experimental Botany, 50(337): 1299-1306).

For BSA of a trait of interest, parental lines with certain differentphenotypes are chosen and crossed to generate F₂, doubled haploid orrecombinant inbred populations with QTL analysis. The population is thenphenotyped to identify individual plants or lines having high or lowexpression of the trait. Two DNA bulks are prepared, one from theindividuals having one phenotype (e.g., resistant to virus), and theother from the individuals having reversed phenotype (e.g., susceptibleto virus), and analyzed for allele frequency with molecular markers.Only a few individuals are required in each bulk (e.g., 10 plants each)if the markers are dominant (e.g., RAPDs). More individuals are neededwhen markers are co-dominant (e.g., RFLPs, SNPs or SSRs). Markers linkedto the phenotype can be identified and used for breeding or QTL mapping.

vi. Hand-Pollination Method

Hand pollination describes the crossing of plants via the deliberatefertilization of female ovules with pollen from a desired male parentplant. In some embodiments the donor or recipient female parent and thedonor or recipient male parent line are planted in the same field. Theinbred male parent can be planted earlier than the female parent toensure adequate pollen supply at the pollination time. In someembodiments, the male parent and female parent can be planted at a ratioof 1 male parent to 4-10 female parents. The male parent may be plantedat the top of the field for efficient male flower collection duringpollination. Pollination is started when the female parent flower isready to be fertilized. Female flower buds that are ready to open in thefollowing days are identified, covered with paper cups or small paperbags that prevent bee or any other insect from visiting the femaleflowers, and marked with any kind of material that can be easily seenthe next morning. In some embodiments, this process is best done in theafternoon. The male flowers of the male parent are collected in theearly morning before they are open and visited by pollinating insects.The covered female flowers of the female parent, which have opened, areun-covered and pollinated with the collected fresh male flowers of themale parent, starting as soon as the male flower sheds pollen. Thepollinated female flowers are again covered after pollination to preventbees and any other insects visit. The pollinated female flowers are alsomarked. The marked fruits are harvested. In some embodiments, the malepollen used for fertilization has been previously collected and stored.

vii. Bee-Pollination Method

Using the bee-pollination method, the parent plants are usually plantedwithin close proximity. In some embodiments more female plants areplanted to allow for a greater production of seed. Breeding of dioeciousspecies can also be done by growing equal amount of each parent plant.Insects are placed in the field or greenhouses for transfer of pollenfrom the male parent to the female flowers of the female parent. In someembodiments, fruits set after the introduction of the beehives can bemarked for later collection.

viii. Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes (TILLING)

Breeding schemes of the present application can include crosses withTILLING® plant lines. TILLING® is a method in molecular biology thatallows directed identification of mutations in a specific gene. TILLING®was introduced in 2000, using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.TILLING® has since been used as a reverse genetics method in otherorganisms such as zebrafish, corn, wheat, rice, soybean, tomato andlettuce.

The method combines a standard and efficient technique of mutagenesiswith a chemical mutagen (e.g., Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS)) with asensitive DNA screening-technique that identifies single base mutations(also called point mutations) in a target gene. EcoTILLING is a methodthat uses TILLING® techniques to look for natural mutations inindividuals, usually for population genetics analysis (see Comai, etal., 2003 The Plant Journal 37, 778-786; Gilchrist et al. 2006 Mol.Ecol. 15, 1367-1378; Mejlhede et al. 2006 Plant Breeding 125, 461-467;Nieto et al. 2007 BMC Plant Biology 7, 34-42, each of which isincorporated by reference hereby for all purposes). DEcoTILLING is amodification of TILLING® and EcoTILLING which uses an inexpensive methodto identify fragments (Garvin et al., 2007, DEco-TILLING: An inexpensivemethod for SNP discovery that reduces ascertainment bias. MolecularEcology Notes 7, 735-746).

The TILLING® method relies on the formation of heteroduplexes that areformed when multiple alleles (which could be from a heterozygote or apool of multiple homozygotes and heterozygotes) are amplified in a PCR,heated, and then slowly cooled. As DNA bases are not pairing at themismatch of the two DNA strands (the induced mutation in TILLING® or thenatural mutation or SNP in EcoTILLING), they provoke a shape change inthe double strand DNA fragment which is then cleaved by single strandednucleases. The products are then separated by size on several differentplatforms.

Several TILLING® centers exists over the world that focus onagriculturally important species: UC Davis (USA), focusing on Rice;Purdue University (USA), focusing on Maize; University of BritishColumbia (CA), focusing on Brassica napus; John Innes Centre (UK),focusing on Brassica rapa; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research, focusing onArabidopsis; Southern Illinois University (USA), focusing on Soybean;John Innes Centre (UK), focusing on Lotus and Medicago; and INRA(France), focusing on Pea and Tomato.

More detailed description on methods and compositions on TILLING® can befound in U.S. Pat. No. 5,994,075, US 2004/0053236 A1, WO 2005/055704,and WO 2005/048692, each of which is hereby incorporated by referencefor all purposes.

Thus, in some embodiments, the breeding methods of the presentdisclosure include breeding with one or more TILLING plant lines withone or more identified mutations.

ix. Mutation Breeding

Mutation breeding is another method of introducing new variation andsubsequent traits into cantaloupe plants. Mutations that occurspontaneously or are artificially induced can be useful sources ofvariability for a plant breeder. The goal of artificial mutagenesis isto increase the rate of mutation for a desired characteristic. Mutationrates can be increased by many different means or mutating agentsincluding temperature, long-term seed storage, tissue cultureconditions, radiation (such as X-rays, Gamma rays, neutrons, Betaradiation, or ultraviolet radiation), chemical mutagens (such as baseanalogs like 5-bromo-uracil), antibiotics, alkylating agents (such assulfur mustards, nitrogen mustards, epoxides, ethyleneamines, sulfates,sulfonates, sulfones, or lactones), azide, hydroxylamine, nitrous acidor acridines. Once a desired trait is observed through mutagenesis thetrait may then be incorporated into existing germplasm by traditionalbreeding techniques. Details of mutation breeding can be found in W. R.Fehr, 1993, Principles of Cultivar Development, Macmillan Publishing Co.

New breeding techniques such as the ones involving the uses ofengineered nuclease to enhance the efficacy and precision of geneediting in combination with oligonucleotides including, but not limitedto Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFN), TAL effector nucleases (TALENs) andclustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats(CRISPR)-associated endonuclease Cas9 (CRISPR-Cas9) shall also be usedto generate genetic variability and introduce new traits into cantaloupevarieties.

x. Double Haploids and Chromosome Doubling

One way to obtain homozygous plants without the need to cross twoparental lines followed by a long selection of the segregating progeny,and/or multiple backcrossing is to produce haploids and then double thechromosomes to form doubled haploids. Haploid plants can occurspontaneously, or may be artificially induced via chemical treatments orby crossing plants with inducer lines (Seymour et al. 2012, PNAS vol.109, pg. 4227-4232; Zhang et al., 2008 Plant Cell Rep. December 27(12)1851-60). The production of haploid progeny can occur via a variety ofmechanisms which can affect the distribution of chromosomes duringgamete formation. The chromosome complements of haploids sometimesdouble spontaneously to produce homozygous doubled haploids (DHs).Mixoploids, which are plants which contain cells having differentploidies, can sometimes arise and may represent plants that areundergoing chromosome doubling so as to spontaneously produce doubledhaploid tissues, organs, shoots, floral parts or plants. Another commontechnique is to induce the formation of double haploid plants with achromosome doubling treatment such as colchicine (El-Hennawy et al.,2011 Vol 56, issue 2 pg. 63-72; Doubled Haploid Production in CropPlants 2003 edited by Maluszynski ISBN 1-4020-1544-5). The production ofdoubled haploid plants yields highly uniform inbred lines and isespecially desirable as an alternative to sexual inbreeding oflonger-generation crops. By producing doubled haploid progeny, thenumber of possible gene combinations for inherited traits is moremanageable. Thus, an efficient doubled haploid technology cansignificantly reduce the time and the cost of inbred and cultivardevelopment.

xi. Protoplast Fusion

In another method for breeding plants, protoplast fusion can also beused for the transfer of trait-conferring genomic material from a donorplant to a recipient plant. Protoplast fusion is an induced orspontaneous union, such as a somatic hybridization, between two or moreprotoplasts (cells of which the cell walls are removed by enzymatictreatment) to produce a single bi- or multi-nucleate cell. The fusedcell that may even be obtained with plant species that cannot beinterbred in nature is tissue cultured into a hybrid plant exhibitingthe desirable combination of traits.

xii. Embryo Rescue

Alternatively, embryo rescue may be employed in the transfer ofresistance-conferring genomic material from a donor plant to a recipientplant. Embryo rescue can be used as a procedure to isolate embryos fromcrosses to rapidly move to the next generation of backcrossing orselfing or wherein plants fail to produce viable seed. In this process,the fertilized ovary or immature seed of a plant is tissue cultured tocreate new plants (see Pierik, 1999, In Vitro Culture of Higher Plants,Springer, ISBN 079235267X, 978-0792352679, which is incorporated hereinby reference in its entirety).

Grafting

Grafting is a process that has been used for many years in crops such ascucurbitacea, but only more recently for some commercial watermelon andtomato production. Grafting may be used to provide a certain level ofresistance to telluric pathogens such as Phytophthora or to certainnematodes. Grafting is therefore intended to prevent contact between theplant or variety to be cultivated and the infested soil. The variety ofinterest used as the graft or scion, optionally an F₁ hybrid, is graftedonto the resistant plant used as the rootstock. The resistant rootstockremains healthy and provides, from the soils, the normal supply for thegraft that it isolates from the diseases. In some recent developments,it has also been shown that some rootstocks are also able to improve theagronomic value for the grafted plant and in particular the equilibriumbetween the vegetative and generative development that are alwaysdifficult to balance in cantaloupe cultivation.

Breeding Evaluation

Each breeding program can include a periodic, objective evaluation ofthe efficiency of the breeding procedure. Evaluation criteria varydepending on the goal and objectives, but should include gain fromselection per year based on comparisons to an appropriate standard,overall value of the advanced breeding lines, and number of successfulcultivars produced per unit of input (e.g., per year, per dollarexpended, etc.).

Promising advanced breeding lines are thoroughly tested per se and inhybrid combination and compared to appropriate standards in environmentsrepresentative of the commercial target area(s). The best lines arecandidates for use as parents in new commercial cultivars; those stilldeficient in a few traits may be used as parents to produce newpopulations for further selection or in a backcross program to improvethe parent lines for a specific trait.

In some embodiments, the plants are selected on the basis of one or morephenotypic traits. Skilled persons will readily appreciate that suchtraits include any observable characteristic of the plant, including forexample growth rate, vigor, plant health, maturity, branching, plantheight, leaf coverage, weight, total yield, color, taste, sugar levels,aroma, changes in the production of one or more compounds by the plant(including for example, metabolites, proteins, drugs, carbohydrates,oils, and any other compounds).

A most difficult task is the identification of individuals that aregenetically superior, because for most traits the true genotypic valueis masked by other confounding plant traits or environmental factors.One method of identifying a superior plant is to observe its performancerelative to other experimental plants and to a widely grown standardcultivar. If a single observation is inconclusive, replicatedobservations provide a better estimate of its genetic worth.

Proper testing should detect any major faults and establish the level ofsuperiority or improvement over current cultivars. In addition toshowing superior performance, there must be a demand for a new cultivarthat is compatible with industry standards or which creates a newmarket. The introduction of a new cultivar will incur additional coststo the seed producer, the grower, processor and consumer for specialadvertising and marketing, altered seed and commercial productionpractices, and new product utilization. The testing preceding release ofa new cultivar should take into consideration research and developmentcosts as well as technical superiority of the final cultivar. Forseed-propagated cultivars, it must be feasible to produce seed easilyand economically.

It should be appreciated that in certain embodiments, plants may beselected based on the absence, suppression or inhibition of a certainfeature or trait (such as an undesirable feature or trait) as opposed tothe presence of a certain feature or trait (such as a desirable featureor trait).

Selecting plants based on genotypic information is also envisaged (forexample, including the pattern of plant gene expression, genotype, orpresence of genetic markers). Where the presence of one or more geneticmarker is assessed, the one or more marker may already be known and/orassociated with a particular characteristic of a plant; for example, amarker or markers may be associated with an increased growth rate ormetabolite profile. This information could be used in combination withassessment based on other characteristics in a method of the disclosureto select for a combination of different plant characteristics that maybe desirable. Such techniques may be used to identify novel quantitativetrait loci (QTLs). By way of example, plants may be selected based ongrowth rate, size (including but not limited to weight, height, leafsize, stem size, branching pattern, or the size of any part of theplant), general health, survival, tolerance to adverse physicalenvironments and/or any other characteristic, as described hereinbefore.

Further non-limiting examples include selecting plants based on: speedof seed germination; quantity of biomass produced; increased root,and/or leaf/shoot growth that leads to an increased yield (fruit) orbiomass production; effects on plant growth that results in an increasedseed yield for a crop; effects on plant growth which result in anincreased yield; effects on plant growth that lead to an increasedresistance or tolerance to disease including fungal, viral or bacterialdiseases, to mycoplasma, or to pests such as insects, mites or nematodesin which damage is measured by decreased foliar symptoms such as theincidence of bacterial or fungal lesions, or area of damaged foliage orreduction in the numbers of nematode cysts or galls on plant roots, orimprovements in plant yield in the presence of such plant pests anddiseases; effects on plant growth that lead to increased metaboliteyields; effects on plant growth that lead to improved aesthetic appealwhich may be particularly important in plants grown for their form,color or taste, for example the color intensity of cantaloupe exocarp(skin) of said fruit.

Molecular Breeding Evaluation Techniques

Selection of plants based on phenotypic or genotypic information may beperformed using techniques such as, but not limited to: high through-putscreening of chemical components of plant origin, sequencing techniquesincluding high through-put sequencing of genetic material, differentialdisplay techniques (including DDRT-PCR, and DD-PCR), nucleic acidmicroarray techniques, RNA-seq (Transcriptome Sequencing), qRTPCR(quantitative real time PCR).

In one embodiment, the evaluating step of a plant breeding programinvolves the identification of desirable traits in progeny plants.Progeny plants can be grown in, or exposed to conditions designed toemphasize a particular trait (e.g. drought conditions for droughttolerance, lower temperatures for freezing tolerant traits). Progenyplants with the highest scores for a particular trait may be used forsubsequent breeding steps.

In some embodiments, plants selected from the evaluation step canexhibit a 1%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, 50%, 55%, 60%,65%, 70%, 75%, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%, 100%, 120% or more improvement in aparticular plant trait compared to a control plant.

In other embodiments, the evaluating step of plant breeding comprisesone or more molecular biological tests for genes or other markers. Forexample, the molecular biological test can involve probe hybridizationand/or amplification of nucleic acid (e.g., measuring nucleic aciddensity by Northern or Southern hybridization, PCR) and/or immunologicaldetection (e.g., measuring protein density, such as precipitation andagglutination tests, ELISA (e.g., Lateral Flow test or DAS-ELISA),Western blot, immune labeling, immunosorbent electron microscopy (ISEM),and/or dot blot).

The procedure to perform a nucleic acid hybridization, an amplificationof nucleic acid (e.g., PCR, RT-PCR) or an immunological detection (e.g.,precipitation and agglutination tests, ELISA (e.g., Lateral Flow test orDAS-ELISA), Western blot, RIA, immunogold or immunofluorescent labeling,immunosorbent electron microscopy (ISEM), and/or dot blot tests) areperformed as described elsewhere herein and well-known by one skilled inthe art.

In one embodiment, the evaluating step comprises PCR (semi-quantitativeor quantitative), wherein primers are used to amplify one or morenucleic acid sequences of a desirable gene, or a nucleic acid associatedwith said gene, or QTL or a desirable trait (e.g., a co-segregatingnucleic acid, or other marker).

In another embodiment, the evaluating step comprises immunologicaldetection (e.g., precipitation and agglutination tests, ELISA (e.g.,Lateral Flow test or DAS-ELISA), Western blot, RIA, immuno labeling(gold, fluorescent, or other detectable marker), immunosorbent electronmicroscopy (ISEM), and/or dot blot), wherein one or more gene ormarker-specific antibodies are used to detect one or more desirableproteins. In one embodiment, said specific antibody is selected from thegroup consisting of polyclonal antibodies, monoclonal antibodies,antibody fragments, and combination thereof.

Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) can be utilizedin the present disclosure to determine expression of a gene to assistduring the selection step of a breeding scheme. It is a variant ofpolymerase chain reaction (PCR), a laboratory technique commonly used inmolecular biology to generate many copies of a DNA sequence, a processtermed “amplification”. In RT-PCR, however, RNA strand is first reversetranscribed into its DNA complement (complementary DNA, or cDNA) usingthe enzyme reverse transcriptase, and the resulting cDNA is amplifiedusing traditional or real-time PCR. An example PCR scheme is shownbelow.

RT-PCR utilizes a pair of primers, which are complementary to a definedsequence on each of the two strands of the mRNA. These primers are thenextended by a DNA polymerase and a copy of the strand is made after eachcycle, leading to logarithmic amplification.

RT-PCR includes three major steps. The first step is the reversetranscription (RT) where RNA is reverse transcribed to cDNA using areverse transcriptase and primers. This step is very important in orderto allow the performance of PCR since DNA polymerase can act only on DNAtemplates. The RT step can be performed either in the same tube with PCR(one-step PCR) or in a separate one (two-step PCR) using a temperaturebetween 40° C. and 60° C., depending on the properties of the reversetranscriptase used.

The next step involves the denaturation of the dsDNA at 95° C., so thatthe two strands separate and the primers can bind again at lowertemperatures and begin a new chain reaction. Then, the temperature isdecreased until it reaches the annealing temperature which can varydepending on the set of primers used, their concentration, the probe andits concentration (if used), and the cation concentration. The mainconsideration, of course, when choosing the optimal annealingtemperature is the melting temperature (Tm) of the primers and probes(if used). The annealing temperature chosen for a PCR depends directlyon length and composition of the primers. This is the result of thedifference of hydrogen bonds between A-T (2 bonds) and G-C (3 bonds). Anannealing temperature about 5 degrees below the lowest Tm of the pair ofprimers is usually used.

The final step of PCR amplification is the DNA extension from theprimers which is done by the thermostable Taq DNA polymerase usually at72° C., which is the optimal temperature for the polymerase to work. Thelength of the incubation at each temperature, the temperaturealterations and the number of cycles are controlled by a programmablethermal cycler. The analysis of the PCR products depends on the type ofPCR applied. If a conventional PCR is used, the PCR product is detectedusing for example agarose gel electrophoresis or other polymer gel likepolyacrylamide gels and ethidium bromide (or other nucleic acidstaining).

Conventional RT-PCR is a time-consuming technique with importantlimitations when compared to real time PCR techniques. This combinedwith the fact that ethidium bromide has low sensitivity, yields resultsthat are not always reliable. Moreover, there is an increasedcross-contamination risk of the samples since detection of the PCRproduct requires the post-amplification processing of the samples.Furthermore, the specificity of the assay is mainly determined by theprimers, which can give false-positive results. However, the mostimportant issue concerning conventional RT-PCR is the fact that it is asemi or even a low quantitative technique, where the amplicon can bevisualized only after the amplification ends.

Real time RT-PCR provides a method where the amplicons can be visualizedas the amplification progresses using a fluorescent reporter molecule.There are three major kinds of fluorescent reporters used in real timeRT-PCR, general nonspecific DNA Binding Dyes such as SYBR Green I,TaqMan Probes and Molecular Beacons (including Scorpions).

For example, the real time PCR thermal cycler has a fluorescencedetection threshold, below which it cannot discriminate the differencebetween amplification generated signal and background noise. On theother hand, the fluorescence increases as the amplification progressesand the instrument performs data acquisition during the annealing stepof each cycle. The number of amplicons will reach the detection baselineafter a specific cycle, which depends on the initial concentration ofthe target DNA sequence. The cycle at which the instrument candiscriminate the amplification generated fluorescence from thebackground noise is called the threshold cycle (Ct). The higher is theinitial DNA concentration, the lower its Ct will be.

Other forms of nucleic acid detection can include next generationsequencing methods such as DNA SEQ or RNA SEQ using any known sequencingplatform including, but not limited to: Roche 454, Solexa GenomeAnalyzer, AB SOLiD, Illumina GA/HiSeq, Ion PGM, Mi Seq, among others(Liu et al., 2012 Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology Volume 2012ID 251364; Franca et al., 2002 Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics 35 pg.169-200; Mardis 2008 Genomics and Human Genetics vol. 9 pg. 387-402).

In other embodiments, nucleic acids may be detected with other highthroughput hybridization technologies including microarrays, gene chips,LNA probes, nanoStrings, and fluorescence polarization detection amongothers.

In some embodiments, detection of markers can be achieved at an earlystage of plant growth by harvesting a small tissue sample (e.g., branch,or leaf disk). This approach is preferable when working with largepopulations as it allows breeders to weed out undesirable progeny at anearly stage and conserve growth space and resources for progeny whichshow more promise. In some embodiments the detection of markers isautomated, such that the detection and storage of marker data is handledby a machine. Recent advances in robotics have also led to full serviceanalysis tools capable of handling nucleic acid/protein markerextractions, detection, storage and analysis.

Quantitative Trait Loci

Breeding schemes of the present application can include crosses betweendonor and recipient plants. In some embodiments, said donor plantscontain a gene or genes of interest which may confer the plant with adesirable phenotype. The recipient line can be an elite line havingcertain favorable traits for commercial production. In one embodiment,the elite line may contain other genes that also impart said line withthe desired phenotype. When crossed together, the donor and recipientplant may create a progeny plant with combined desirable loci which mayprovide quantitatively additive effect of a particular characteristic.In that case, QTL mapping can be involved to facilitate the breedingprocess.

A QTL (quantitative trait locus) mapping can be applied to determine theparts of the donor plant's genome conferring the desirable phenotype,and facilitate the breeding methods. Inheritance of quantitative traitsor polygenic inheritance refers to the inheritance of a phenotypiccharacteristic that varies in degree and can be attributed to theinteractions between two or more genes and their environment. Though notnecessarily genes themselves, quantitative trait loci (QTLs) arestretches of DNA that are closely linked to the genes that underlie thetrait in question. QTLs can be molecularly identified to help mapregions of the genome that contain genes involved in specifying aquantitative trait. This can be an early step in identifying andsequencing these genes.

Typically, QTLs underlie continuous traits (those traits that varycontinuously, e.g. yield, height, level of resistance to virus, etc.) asopposed to discrete traits (traits that have two or several charactervalues, e.g. smooth vs. wrinkled peas used by Mendel in hisexperiments). Moreover, a single phenotypic trait is usually determinedby many genes. Consequently, many QTLs are associated with a singletrait.

A quantitative trait locus (QTL) is a region of DNA that is associatedwith a particular phenotypic trait. Knowing the number of QTLs thatexplains variation in the phenotypic trait tells about the geneticarchitecture of a trait. It may tell that a trait is controlled by manygenes of small effect, or by a few genes of large effect or by a severalgenes of small effect and few genes of larger effect.

Another use of QTLs is to identify candidate genes underlying a trait.Once a region of DNA is identified as contributing to a phenotype, itcan be sequenced. The DNA sequence of any genes in this region can thenbe compared to a database of DNA for genes whose function is alreadyknown.

In a recent development, classical QTL analyses are combined with geneexpression profiling i.e. by DNA microarrays. Such expression QTLs(e-QTLs) describes cis- and trans-controlling elements for theexpression of often disease-associated genes. Observed epistatic effectshave been found beneficial to identify the gene responsible by across-validation of genes within the interacting loci with metabolicpathway and scientific literature databases.

QTL mapping is the statistical study of the alleles that occur in alocus and the phenotypes (physical forms or traits) that they produce(see, Meksem and Kahl, The handbook of plant genome mapping: genetic andphysical mapping, 2005, Wiley-VCH, ISBN 3527311165, 9783527311163).Because most traits of interest are governed by more than one gene,defining and studying the entire locus of genes related to a trait giveshope of understanding what effect the genotype of an individual mighthave in the real world.

Statistical analysis is required to demonstrate that different genesinteract with one another and to determine whether they produce asignificant effect on the phenotype. QTLs identify a particular regionof the genome as containing one or several genes, i.e. a cluster ofgenes that is associated with the trait being assayed or measured. Theyare shown as intervals across a chromosome, where the probability ofassociation is plotted for each marker used in the mapping experiment.

To begin, a set of genetic markers must be developed for the species inquestion. A marker is an identifiable region of variable DNA. Biologistsare interested in understanding the genetic basis of phenotypes(physical traits). The aim is to find a marker that is significantlymore likely to co-occur with the trait than expected by chance, that is,a marker that has a statistical association with the trait. Ideally,they would be able to find the specific gene or genes in question, butthis is a long and difficult undertaking. Instead, they can more readilyfind regions of DNA that are very close to the genes in question. When aQTL is found, it is often not the actual gene underlying the phenotypictrait, but rather a region of DNA that is closely linked with the gene.

For organisms whose genomes are known, one might now try to excludegenes in the identified region whose function is known with somecertainty not to be connected with the trait in question. If the genomeis not available, it may be an option to sequence the identified regionand determine the putative functions of genes by their similarity togenes with known function, usually in other genomes. This can be doneusing BLAST, an online tool that allows users to enter a primarysequence and search for similar sequences within the BLAST database ofgenes from various organisms.

Another interest of statistical geneticists using QTL mapping is todetermine the complexity of the genetic architecture underlying aphenotypic trait. For example, they may be interested in knowing whethera phenotype is shaped by many independent loci, or by a few loci, andhow those loci interact. This can provide information on how thephenotype may be evolving.

Molecular markers are used for the visualization of differences innucleic acid sequences. This visualization is possible due to DNA-DNAhybridization techniques (RFLP) and/or due to techniques using thepolymerase chain reaction (e.g. STS, SNPs, microsatellites, AFLP). Alldifferences between two parental genotypes will segregate in a mappingpopulation based on the cross of these parental genotypes. Thesegregation of the different markers may be compared and recombinationfrequencies can be calculated. The recombination frequencies ofmolecular markers on different chromosomes are generally 50%. Betweenmolecular markers located on the same chromosome the recombinationfrequency depends on the distance between the markers. A lowrecombination frequency usually corresponds to a low distance betweenmarkers on a chromosome. Comparing all recombination frequencies willresult in the most logical order of the molecular markers on thechromosomes. This most logical order can be depicted in a linkage map(Paterson, 1996, Genome Mapping in Plants. R. G. Landes, Austin.). Agroup of adjacent or contiguous markers on the linkage map that isassociated to a reduced disease incidence and/or a reduced lesion growthrate pinpoints the position of a QTL.

The nucleic acid sequence of a QTL may be determined by methods known tothe skilled person. For instance, a nucleic acid sequence comprisingsaid QTL or a resistance-conferring part thereof may be isolated from adonor plant by fragmenting the genome of said plant and selecting thosefragments harboring one or more markers indicative of said QTL.Subsequently, or alternatively, the marker sequences (or parts thereof)indicative of said QTL may be used as (PCR) amplification primers, inorder to amplify a nucleic acid sequence comprising said QTL from agenomic nucleic acid sample or a genome fragment obtained from saidplant. The amplified sequence may then be purified in order to obtainthe isolated QTL. The nucleotide sequence of the QTL, and/or of anyadditional markers comprised therein, may then be obtained by standardsequencing methods.

One or more such QTLs associated with a desirable trait in a donor plantcan be transferred to a recipient plant to incorporate the desirabletrait into progeny plants by transferring and/or breeding methods.

In one embodiment, an advanced backcross QTL analysis (AB-QTL) is usedto discover the nucleotide sequence or the QTLs responsible for theresistance of a plant. Such method was proposed by Tanksley and Nelsonin 1996 (Tanksley and Nelson, 1996, Advanced backcross QTL analysis: amethod for simultaneous discovery and transfer of valuable QTL fromun-adapted germplasm into elite breeding lines. Theor Appl Genet92:191-203) as a new breeding method that integrates the process of QTLdiscovery with variety development, by simultaneously identifying andtransferring useful QTL alleles from un-adapted (e.g., land races, wildspecies) to elite germplasm, thus broadening the genetic diversityavailable for breeding. AB-QTL strategy was initially developed andtested in tomato, and has been adapted for use in other crops includingrice, maize, wheat, pepper, barley, and bean. Once favorable QTL allelesare detected, only a few additional marker-assisted generations arerequired to generate near isogenic lines (NILs) or introgression lines(ILs) that can be field tested in order to confirm the QTL effect andsubsequently used for variety development.

Isogenic lines in which favorable QTL alleles have been fixed can begenerated by systematic backcrossing and introgressing of marker-defineddonor segments in the recurrent parent background. These isogenic linesare referred to as near isogenic lines (NILs), introgression lines(ILs), backcross inbred lines (BILs), backcross recombinant inbred lines(BCRIL), recombinant chromosome substitution lines (RCSLs), chromosomesegment substitution lines (CSSLs), and stepped aligned inbredrecombinant strains (STAIRSs). An introgression line in plant molecularbiology is a line of a crop species that contains genetic materialderived from a similar species. ILs represent NILs with relatively largeaverage introgression length, while BILs and BCRILs are backcrosspopulations generally containing multiple donor introgressions per line.As used herein, the term “introgression lines or ILs” refers to plantlines containing a single marker defined homozygous donor segment, andthe term “pre-ILs” refers to lines which still contain multiplehomozygous and/or heterozygous donor segments.

To enhance the rate of progress of introgression breeding, a geneticinfrastructure of exotic libraries can be developed. Such an exoticlibrary comprises a set of introgression lines, each of which has asingle, possibly homozygous, marker-defined chromosomal segment thatoriginates from a donor exotic parent, in an otherwise homogenous elitegenetic background, so that the entire donor genome would be representedin a set of introgression lines. A collection of such introgressionlines is referred as libraries of introgression lines or IL libraries(ILLs). The lines of an ILL cover usually the complete genome of thedonor, or the part of interest. Introgression lines allow the study ofquantitative trait loci, but also the creation of new varieties byintroducing exotic traits. High resolution mapping of QTL using ILLsenable breeders to assess whether the effect on the phenotype is due toa single QTL or to several tightly linked QTL affecting the same trait.In addition, sub-ILs can be developed to discover molecular markerswhich are more tightly linked to the QTL of interest, which can be usedfor marker-assisted breeding (MAB). Multiple introgression lines can bedeveloped when the introgression of a single QTL is not sufficient toresult in a substantial improvement in agriculturally important traits(Gur and Zamir, Unused natural variation can lift yield barriers inplant breeding, 2004, PLoS Biol.; 2(10):e245).

Tissue Culture

As it is well known in the art, tissue culture of cantaloupe can be usedfor the in vitro regeneration of cantaloupe plants. Tissues cultures ofvarious tissues of cantaloupe and regeneration of plants therefrom arewell known and published. By way of example, a tissue culture comprisingorgans has been used to produce regenerated plants as described inGirish-Chandel et al., Advances in Plant Sciences. 2000, 13: 1, 11-17,Costa et al., Plant Cell Report. 2000,19: 3327-332, Plastira et al.,Acta Horticulturae. 1997, 447, 231-234, Zagorska et al., Plant CellReport. 1998, 17: 12 968-973, Asahura et al., Breeding Science. 1995,45: 455-459, Chen et al., Breeding Science. 1994, 44: 3, 257-262, Patilet al., Plant and Tissue and Organ Culture. 1994, 36: 2, 255-258. It isclear from the literature that the state of the art is such that thesemethods of obtaining plants are routinely used and have a very high rateof success. Thus, another aspect of this disclosure is to provide cellswhich upon growth and differentiation produce cantaloupe plants havingall of the physiological and morphological characteristics of hybridcantaloupe plant SUN PAC.

As used herein, the term “tissue culture” indicates a compositioncomprising isolated cells of the same or a different type or acollection of such cells organized into parts of a plant. Exemplarytypes of tissue cultures are protoplasts, calli, plant clumps, and plantcells that can generate tissue culture that are intact in plants orparts of plants, such as embryos, pollens, flowers, seeds, leaves,stems, roots, root tips, anthers, pistils, meristematic cells, axillarybuds, ovaries, seed coats, endosperms, hypocotyls, cotyledons and thelike. Means for preparing and maintaining plant tissue culture are wellknown in the art. By way of example, a tissue culture comprising organshas been used to produce regenerated plants. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,959,185,5,973,234, and 5,977,445 describe certain techniques, the disclosures ofwhich are incorporated herein by reference.

EXAMPLES

The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations relatedtherewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Otherlimitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill inthe art upon a reading of the specification.

Example 1—Development of New SUN PAC Cantaloupe Variety

Breeding History

Hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC has superior characteristics. The female(FMEL2) and male (MMEL3) parents were crossed to produce hybrid (F₁)seeds of SUN PAC. The seeds of SUN PAC can be grown to produce hybridplants and parts therefor. The hybrid SUN PAC can be propagated by seedsby crossing cantaloupe inbred line FMEL2 with cantaloupe inbred lineMMEL3 or vegetatively.

The origin and breeding history of hybrid plant SUN PAC can besummarized as follows: the line FMEL2 was used as the female plant andcrossed using pollen from the male line MMEL3 (both proprietary linesowned by HM.CLAUSE, Inc.). The first trial planting of this hybrid wasdone in Davis California station in the summer of the first year ofdevelopment. The hybrid was further trialed for two additional years inCalifornia, Mexico and Arizona.

Inbred line FMEL2 is a parent with a sutured, non-LSL fruit with aslight oval shape and very firm flesh with dark orange color. Thenetting is strong on the ribs and the exterior has a strong color changeat maturity. This line has a moderately vigorous vine with resistance tomultiple races of Fusarium Wilt. This inbred line was used as femaleparent in this cross.

The inbred MMEL3 is a parent that is a non-sutured, dark green, non-LSLfruit with aromatic, medium orange flesh. The fruit are medium size,strongly netted and late maturing. It has an extremely vigorous plantwith resistance to multiple races of Fusarium Wilt, Powdery Mildew andaphid colonization. This inbred line was used as the male parent in thiscross.

Hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC is similar to hybrid cantaloupe plant HM8970. HM 8970 is a commercial variety. As shown in Tables 1, 2, 3 and 4,while similar to hybrid cantaloupe plant HM 8970, there are significantdifferences including the relative maturity that is late for SUN PACwhile HM 8970 is mid-early maturity, the fruit shape in longitudinalsection is medium elliptic for SUN PAC and obovate for HM 8970 and thenet type is medium course to coarse for SUN PAC while it is medium forHM 8970.

Some of the criteria used to select the hybrid SUN PAC as well as theirinbred parent lines in various generations include: maturity, yield,plant vigor and resistance, fruit size, plant habit, fruit shape, fleshcolor, flesh firmness and disease resistance.

Hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC has shown uniformity and stability forthe traits, within the limits of environmental influence for the traitsas described in the following Variety Descriptive Information. Novariant traits have been observed or are expected for importantagronomical traits in cantaloupe hybrid SUN PAC.

Hybrid cantaloupe plant SUN PAC has the following morphologic and othercharacteristics, as compared to HM 8970 (based primarily on datacollected in Davis, Calif., all experiments done under the directsupervision of the applicant).

TABLE 1 Trait Scale SUN PAC HM 8970 Seedling: length of hypocotyl veryshort, short, medium, long, short short very long Seedling: size ofcotyledon very small, small, medium, large, very large large very largeSeedling: intensity of green light, medium, dark medium medium color ofcotyledon Leaf blade: size small, medium, large medium medium Leafblade: intensity of green light, medium, dark dark medium color Leafblade: development of weak, medium, strong weak weak lobes Leaf blade:length of terminal short, medium, long short short lobe Leaf blade:dentation of margin weak, medium, strong weak weak Leaf blade:blistering weak, medium, strong weak weak Inflorescence: sex expressionmonoecious, andromonoecious monoecious monoecious (at full flowering)Young fruit: hue of green color whitish green, yellowish green, greyishgreen green of skin green, greyish green Young fruit: intensity of greenvery light, light, medium, dark, medium light color of skin very darkYoung fruit: density of dots absent or very sparse, sparse, dense sparsemedium, dense, very dense Young fruit: size of dots small, medium, largesmall small Young fruit: contrast of dot weak, medium, strong mediumweak color/ground color Young fruit: conspicuousness absent or veryweak, weak, weak strong of groove coloring medium, strong, very strongYoung fruit: intensity of groove light, medium, dark light mediumcoloring Young fruit: length of peduncle short, medium, long long mediumYoung fruit: thickness of thin, medium, thick thin medium peduncle 1 cmfrom fruit Young fruit: extension of darker absent or very small, small,absent or very absent or very area around peduncle medium, large smallsmall Fruit: length cm 21 21.3 Fruit: diameter cm 18.7 19.5 Fruit: ratiolength/diameter cm 1.1 1.1 Fruit: position of maximum toward stem end,at middle, at middle at middle diameter toward blossom end Fruit: shapein longitudinal ovate, medium elliptic, broad medium elliptic obovatesection elliptic, circular, quadrangular, oblate, obovate, elongatedFruit: ground color of skin white, yellow, green, grey yellow yellowFruit: intensity of ground color light, medium, dark light light of skinFruit: hue of ground color of absent or very weak, whitish, greenishyellowish skin yellowish, orange, ochre, greenish, greyish Fruit:density of dots absent or very sparse, sparse, absent or very absent orvery medium, dense, very dense sparse sparse Fruit: size of dots small,medium, large small small Fruit: color of dots white, yellow, greenwhite yellow Fruit: intensity of color of dots light, medium, dark lightlight Fruit: density of patches absent or very sparse, sparse, absent orvery absent or very medium, dense, very dense sparse sparse Fruit: sizeof patches small, medium, large small small Fruit: warts absent, presentabsent absent Fruit: strength of attachment of very weak, weak, medium,weak weak peduncle at maturity strong, very strong Fruit: shape of basepointed, rounded, truncate pointed pointed Fruit: shape of apex pointed,rounded, truncate rounded rounded Fruit: size of pistil scar small,medium, large small small Fruit: grooves absent or very weaklyexpressed, weakly absent or very weakly expressed, strongly expressedweakly expressed expressed Fruit: width of grooves narrow, medium, broadmedium narrow Fruit: depth of grooves very shallow, shallow, medium,very shallow very shallow deep, very deep Fruit: color of grooves white,yellow, green green green Fruit: creasing of surface absent or veryweak, weak, absent or very absent or very medium, strong, very strongweak weak Fruit: cork formation absent, present present present Fruit:thickness of cork layer very thin, thin, medium, thick, thick thick verythick Fruit: pattern of cork formation dots only, dots and linear,linear netted only netted only only, linear and netted, netted onlyFruit: density of pattern of cork very sparse, sparse, medium, densedense formation dense, very dense Fruit: width of flesh in thin, medium,thick medium medium longitudinal section (at position of maximum fruitdiameter) Fruit main color of flesh white, greenish white, green, orangeorange yellowish white, orange, reddish orange Only varieties with maincolor light, medium, dark medium medium of flesh: orange: Fruit:intensity of orange color of flesh Fruit: firmness of flesh soft,medium, firm soft medium Seed: length very short, short, medium, long,short short very long Seed: width very narrow, narrow, medium, mediumnarrow broad, very broad Seed: shape not pine-nut shape, pine-nut shapepine-nut shape pine-nut shape Seed: color whitish, cream yellow creamyellow cream yellow Only varieties with cream light, medium, dark mediummedium yellow seed color: Seed: intensity of color Brix 15.3 15.2

Examples 2—Field Trials Characteristics of Hybrid Melon Plant SUN PAC

In Tables 2, 3 and 4 the traits and characteristics of hybrid melonplant SUN PAC are compared to the variety HM 8970. The data wascollected during multiple growing periods in a single year from severalfield locations in the United States and Mexico. All experiments weredone under the direct supervision of the applicant.

In Tables 2, 3 and 4 the first line shows the “trial location”. Thesecond line shows the “transplant date” when seedlings were planted inthe field. The third line shows the “harvest date” when evaluations weredone. Evaluation was done when the hybrids were at harvest maturitystage. The fourth line shows the “number of fruit” per 16 plants. Thefifth line “fruit set” means the relative number of fruit at harvestmaturity at any one time, “concentrated” indicates most fruit can beharvested, extended means the fruit will be harvested multiple times.The sixth lines show the relative “vine size”. The seventh line show the“relative maturity” when 50% of the fruit are ready to be harvested. Theeight line shows the “fruit shape” of the fruit with 1=flat, 2=round,3=round slight oval, 4=moderate oval, 5=oval. The ninth line shows therelative “fruit size”. The tenth line shows the net spacing on theexternal part of the fruit 1=open, 2=mid open, 3=close. The eleventhline shows the “net type” with 1=fine, 2=medium, 3=medium coarse,4=coarse. The twelve line shows the “flesh color” with 1=very pale,2=pale, 3=medium, 4=dark, 5=very dark. The thirteenth line is “cavitysize” with 1=very, small, 2=small, 3=medium, 4=large, 5=very large. Thefourteenth line is the “average brix” measured with a refractometer atthe center of the fruit and given as the percentage of soluble solids.The fifteenth line is the “average flesh firmness at the center” of thefruit and is given in pounds of force.

TABLE 2 Trial Location Yuma, Arizona Transplant Date March 1^(st)Harvest date June 8^(th) Trait SUN PAC HM 8970 Number of Fruit (per 16plants) 35 31 Fruit Set Semi-Concentrated Semi-concentrated Vine SizeStrong Mid-strong Relative Maturity Late Mid-early Fruit Shape 3 3 FruitSize Medium-Large Medium-Large Net spacing 4 4 Net type 4 2 Flesh color4 3 Cavity size 2 2 Average Brix 16 17 Average Flesh Firmness at 6.756.75 Center (lbs.)

TABLE 3 Trial Location Davis, California Transplant Date April 9^(th)Harvest date July 10^(th) Trait SUN PAC HM 8970 Number of Fruit (per 16plants) 36 32 Fruit Set Semi-Concentrated Semi-concentrated Vine SizeStrong Mid-strong Relative Maturity Late Mid-early Fruit Shape 3 3 FruitSize 4 3 Net spacing 4 3 Net type 3 2 Flesh color 3 4 Cavity size 3 2Average Brix 14 13 Average Flesh Firmness at 6 5 Center (lbs)

TABLE 4 Trial Location Hermosillo, Mexico Transplant Date January 8^(th)Harvest date April 27^(th) Trait SUN PAC HM 8970 Number of Fruit (per 16plants) 37 33 Fruit Set Semi-Concentrated Semi-concentrated Vine SizeStrong Mid-strong Relative Maturity Late Mid-early Fruit Shape 3 3 FruitSize 4 3 Net spacing 3 3 Net type 3 2 Flesh color 4 4 Cavity size 2 2Average Brix 14.5 15.50 Average Flesh Firmness at 6 6 Center (lbs)

DEPOSIT INFORMATION

A deposit of the cantaloupe seed of this disclosure is maintained byHM.CLAUSE, Inc. Davis Research Station, 9241 Mace Boulevard, Davis,Calif. 95618. In addition, a sample of the hybrid cantaloupe seed ofthis disclosure has been deposited and accepted with an InternationalDepositary Authority as established under the Budapest Treaty accordingto 37 CFR 1.803(a)(1). Applicant has deposited seeds at the NationalCollections of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria, NCIMB Ltd. FergusonBuilding, Craibstone Estate, Bucksburn, Aberdeen, AB21 9YA Scotland.

To satisfy the enablement requirements of 35 U.S.C. 112, and to certifythat the deposit of the isolated strain of the present disclosure meetsthe criteria set forth in 37 CFR 1.801-1.809, Applicants hereby make thefollowing statements regarding the deposited hybrid cantaloupe SUN PAC(deposited as NCIMB Accession No. 43853).

1. During the pendency of this application, access to the deposit willbe afforded to the Commissioner upon request;

2. All restrictions on availability to the public will be irrevocablyremoved upon granting of the patent under conditions specified in 37 CFR1.808;

3. The deposit will be maintained in a public repository for a period of30 years or 5 years after the last request or for the effective life ofthe patent, whichever is longer;

4. A test of the viability of the biological material at the time ofdeposit will be conducted by the public depository under 37 CFR 1.807;and

5. The deposit will be replaced if it should ever become unavailable.

Access to this deposit will be available during the pendency of thisapplication to persons determined by the Commissioner of Patents andTrademarks to be entitled thereto under 37 C.F.R. § 1.14 and 35 U.S.C. §122. Upon allowance of any claims in this application, all restrictionson the availability to the public of the variety will be irrevocablyremoved by affording access to a deposit of at least 2,500 seeds of thesame variety with the NCIMB.

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

All references, articles, publications, patents, patent publications,and patent applications cited herein are incorporated by reference intheir entireties for all purposes.

However, mention of any reference, article, publication, patent, patentpublication, and patent application cited herein is not, and should notbe taken as an acknowledgment or any form of suggestion that theyconstitute valid prior art or form part of the common general knowledgein any country in the world.

What is claimed is:
 1. A seed of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC,wherein a representative sample of seed of said hybrid has beendeposited under NCIMB No.
 43853. 2. A cantaloupe plant, a part thereof,or a cell thereof, produced by growing the seed of claim 1, wherein thecantaloupe plant or a cantaloupe plant regenerated from the part or thecell has all of the physiological and morphological characteristics ofhybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC when grown under the sameenvironmental conditions.
 3. The cantaloupe plant, the part thereof, orthe cell thereof of claim 2, wherein the part is selected from the groupconsisting of a leaf, a flower, a fruit, a stalk, a root, a rootstock, ascion, a seed, an embryo, a peduncle, a stamen, an anther, a pistil, apollen, an ovule, and a cell.
 4. A tissue culture of regenerable cellsproduced from the cantaloupe plant or the part thereof of claim 2,wherein a cantaloupe plant regenerated from the tissue culture has allof the physiological and morphological characteristics of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC when grown in the same environmentalconditions.
 5. A cantaloupe plant regenerated from the tissue culture ofclaim 4, said plant having all of the physiological and morphologicalcharacteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC when grown underthe same environmental conditions and wherein a representative sample ofseed of said hybrid has been deposited under NCIMB No.
 43853. 6. Acantaloupe fruit produced from the plant of claim
 2. 7. A method forharvesting a cantaloupe fruit, the method comprising: (a) growing thecantaloupe plant of claim 2 to produce a cantaloupe fruit, and (b)harvesting said cantaloupe fruit.
 8. A cantaloupe fruit produced by themethod of claim
 7. 9. A method for producing a cantaloupe seed, themethod comprising: (a) crossing a first cantaloupe plant with a secondcantaloupe plant and (b) harvesting the resultant cantaloupe seed,wherein said first cantaloupe plant and/or second cantaloupe plant isthe cantaloupe plant of claim
 2. 10. A method for producing a cantaloupeseed, the method comprising: (a) self-pollinating the cantaloupe plantof claim 2 and (b) harvesting the resultant cantaloupe seed.
 11. Amethod of vegetatively propagating the cantaloupe plant of claim 2, themethod comprising: (a) collecting a part capable of being propagatedfrom the plant of claim 2 and (b) regenerating a plant from said part.12. The method of claim 11, further comprising (c) harvesting a fruitfrom said regenerated plant.
 13. A plant obtained from the method ofclaim 11, wherein said plant has all of the physiological andmorphological characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PACwhen grown under the same environmental conditions.
 14. A fruit obtainedfrom the method of claim
 12. 15. A method of producing a cantaloupeplant derived from hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC, the methodcomprising: (a) self-pollinating the plant of claim 2 at least once toproduce a progeny plant.
 16. The method of claim 15, further comprisingthe steps of: (b) crossing the progeny plant derived from the hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC with itself or a second cantaloupe plantto produce a seed of progeny plant of subsequent generation; (c) growingthe progeny plant of the subsequent generation from the seed; (d)crossing the progeny plant of the subsequent generation with itself or asecond cantaloupe plant to produce a cantaloupe plant derived from thehybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC; and (e) repeating step (b) and/or(c) for at least one generation to produce a cantaloupe plant derivedfrom the hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC.
 17. A method of producinga cantaloupe plant derived from hybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC,the method comprising: (a) crossing the plant of claim 2 with a secondcantaloupe plant to produce a progeny plant.
 18. The method of claim 17,further comprising the steps of: (b) crossing the progeny plant derivedfrom the hybrid cantaloupe plant designated SUN PAC with itself or asecond cantaloupe plant to produce a seed of progeny plant of subsequentgeneration; (c) growing the progeny plant of the subsequent generationfrom the seed (d) crossing the progeny plant of the subsequentgeneration with itself or a second cantaloupe plant to produce acantaloupe plant derived from the cantaloupe hybrid cantaloupe plantdesignated SUN PAC; and (e) repeating step (b) and/or (c) to produce acantaloupe plant derived from the hybrid cantaloupe plant designated SUNPAC.
 19. A method of producing a plant of hybrid cantaloupe designatedSUN PAC comprising at least one desired trait, the method comprisingintroducing a single locus conversion conferring the desired trait intohybrid cantaloupe designated SUN PAC, whereby a plant of hybridcantaloupe designated SUN PAC comprising the desired trait is produced.20. A cantaloupe plant, comprising a single locus conversion andotherwise all of the characteristics of hybrid cantaloupe designated SUNPAC when grown under the same environmental conditions, wherein arepresentative sample of seed of said hybrid has been deposited underNCIMB No.
 43853. 21. The plant of claim 20, wherein the single locusconversion confers said plant with herbicide resistance.
 22. The plantof claim 20, wherein the single locus conversion is introduced into theplant by the use of recurrent selection, mutation breeding, wherein saidmutation breeding selects for a mutation that is spontaneous orartificially induced, backcrossing, pedigree breeding, haploid/doublehaploid production, marker-assisted selection, genetic transformation,genomic selection, Zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) technology,oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis, cisgenesis, intragenesis,RNA-dependent DNA methylation, agro-infiltration, TranscriptionActivation-Like Effector Nuclease (TALENs), CRISPR/Cas system,engineered meganuclease, re-engineered homing endonuclease, and DNAguided genome editing.
 23. A method of producing a cantaloupe plant,comprising grafting a rootstock or a scion of the hybrid cantaloupeplant of claim 2 to another cantaloupe plant.
 24. A method for producingnucleic acids, the method comprising isolating nucleic acids from theplant of claim 2, or a part, or a cell thereof.
 25. A method forproducing a second cantaloupe plant, the method comprising applyingplant breeding techniques to the plant or part of claim 2 to produce thesecond cantaloupe plant.